To Boldly Go Once Again
by Eratta
Summary: The NX01 senior crew is reunited 5 years after Enterprise's decommissioning for one final mission. Ignores S4.
1. Default Chapter

_Disclaimer: Everything that you recognize belongs to Paramount. Everything else is mine.  
  
Archive: Absolutely, just tell me where.  
  
A/N: I haven't written in the longest time, so it may take a few chapters for me to get back into the swing of things. This is also unbeta-ed (I'm accepting applications though), so please forgive any errors/discrepancies.  
_

History was being made once again today. Or perhaps history was trying to get back to what it should always have been, before presumptuous individuals had tried to change timelines and destroy entire worlds. Five years after the successful return of the NX-01 _Enterprise_ from the Xindi Mission, Earth was once again attempting to "boldly go where no man has gone before".  
  
Such were the thoughts of one Jonathon Archer one morning, the morning of the first deep space launch in almost eight years.  
  
"Am I the only one getting a sense of déjà vu?"  
  
Archer had to smile at that, and nodded to his best friend. It was very much a sense of déjà vu, but this time he wasn't on the ship in the captain's chair. This time, he was watching the vessel come out of space dock from an observation deck, watching the sleek hull glide past in the vacuum of space, gazing at the numbers and letters that made up her name: the NX-02 _Columbia_. In his peripheral vision, Trip was slowly nodding his head.  
  
"Eight years ago that was us. Even after all this time, I can't believe they're goin' to finish what we started." The engineer said.  
  
Jonathon didn't respond, which garnered him a look from the other man.  
  
"You're not wishin' that it was you on that bridge, are you?"  
  
Now that the _Columbia_ had gone to warp, Jon turned towards Trip and offered a small smile. Though not as close as he once had been, Trip still knew him well. He clapped a hand on his best friend's shoulder as they began to walk back to the docking port.  
  
"You know Trip, if you'd have asked me that just a week ago, I might have said yes."  
  
"But today is different?"  
  
Jonathon paused. Yes things were different, but they had been different since that attack exactly five years ago; the attack that had killed eighteen and marked the beginning of the end of the Xindi mission.  
  
"Yeah, today's different."Two months later the same man, the former captain of the Enterprise was sitting in his office going through paperwork. He'd never really liked paperwork, but he'd come to appreciate the rhythm of it. The beep and chirp of the PADD, the scrolling data which proved somewhere, progress was being made. It certainly wasn't nearly as stimulating as being out in space, experiencing new things and meeting new people. But for the most part, it kept him from thinking about the past, the past which really didn't seem long ago at all.  
  
Jonathon shook his head. He had taken this mental path far too often, always to the same end. He was not going to think about that; not as long as he could avoid it.  
  
The door to the office opened, and Jonathon Archer's personal secretary poked her head in.  
  
"Sir, Admiral Forrest just sent a communiqué. He'd like you to meet him in the main conference room in the Command building."  
  
Archer turned off his PADD and rose from the desk, shaking off his disconcerting introspection as best he could. Now was not the time for personal interference. He forced a smile onto his face and straightened his shoulders as he walked out of the office.  
  
When he arrived at the conference room, he could feel the old curiosity rising within him. Every member of the Command team was there, as well as a number of younger captains, commodores, commanders and various specialists that Archer was vaguely familiar with. All were directly connected with the NX-02 program. Forrest was standing at the head of the table, drumming his fingers on the screen of a PADD. Apparently, Archer thought, this was something important.  
  
"I've called you all together because we seem to have a problem on our hands." Forrest began. He paused for a moment, allowing the weight of his words to sink in.  
  
"We've lost contact with _Columbia_."  
  
Jon was confused. Such a minor problem did not merit an assembly such as this.  
  
"Admiral," he began, standing so he could be seen and heard, "that's hardly an emergency."  
  
Forrest's mouth twisted into a wry expression, something between a smile and a frown. Ever since he's first known him in flight school, the admiral had known that Jonathon's observations, while sound, were sometimes out of place. In any other man the trait would have been unbearably annoying.  
  
"Normally I'd agree with you Commodore, but it's been nearly a week since we heard from them. Given Captain Ruiz's usual punctuality and adherence to protocol, it's something we should look into."  
  
"Perhaps there is some spatial interference which is causing the problem."  
  
The suggestion came from Ambassador Soval, seated in his usual place near the admiral. Murmurs ran through the assembly; that was always a possibility.  
  
One of the younger commanders shook his head. "With all due respect Ambassador, that can't be it. They're only two months out; nothing should be able to interfere at that range. And even if it did, it would only disrupt communication, not sensors."  
  
"What do you mean?" Archer asked.  
  
The commander turned to him, grey eyes darting nervously even as his voice remained steady. "We've lost all trace of them, sir."  
  
"You mean to say that you cannot pinpoint their position." Soval clarified.  
  
"No sir, I mean that we can't even find a signal to try to pinpoint. It's as though _Columbia _never existed." The commodore replied.  
  
"So what the hell happened to them?" Forrest asked.  
  
It was a question no one could answer.Later that same evening alone in his apartment, Jonathon mulled over the news. It was probably nothing, he told himself over and over. They'd probably come across some uncharted phenomenon which was disrupting signals across the board. Well, that and maybe _Echo 1_ was out of commission. The _Columbia_ was fine, the tired commodore that he had become said. But the other Archer, the captain who had grown up around starships and their crews knew the how unpredictable deep space could be and was not convinced. If his own experiences were anything to draw from, _Columbia_ and her crew were probably in trouble.  
  
The old grandfather clock in the dark foyer chimed eleven times. Archer sighed as he stood, turning out lights as he made his way to the bedroom. He opened the door, but did not see the bed, desk and bedside table as he had every night for several years. Instead he was assaulted by a blinding, all encompassing light. He blinked a few times, but the image in front of him would not change back to what it should have been. In front of him were a few people gathered loosely around a table, all with their backs to him. They were on a dais in the middle of an enormous auditorium. Beyond the dais he could see thousands of people in stands.  
  
The scene was awfully familiar.  
  
It dawned on him slowly, like he was waking from a dream. This was what Daniels had shown him five years ago, back just before the weapon had been destroyed.  
  
Daniels  
  
"It's been a while, Captain." A voice floated from around a pillar. Jon turned and saw the temporal agent, and was irritated as ever to see him.  
  
"Will you ever leave me alone?" he demanded. Visits from the mysterious Daniels were something he would never look forward to. It always signaled that things were about to shift in Archer's world, and always just when he didn't need any more complications.  
  
"You remember this?" Daniels asked, ignoring Archer's question.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Daniels inclined his head towards the scene, and Archer turned back to survey it once again.  
  
"You see that man, second from the left? That's you." He said. Archer deliberately did not look at the figure.  
  
"And the one on your right? That's Captain Ruiz"  
  
Jon straightened and shot a look of surprise at Daniels. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the _Columbia_'s sudden disappearance, would it?" The commodore demanded.  
  
"The factions are preparing to launch total and open war against each other. _Columbia _wandered right into the middle of the mess, but it wasn't an accident." Daniels explained.  
  
Archer narrowed his eyes. This is sounding worse every second, he thought to himself. He stepped back behind the pillar with the temporal agent.  
  
"What does this have to do with me? In case you haven't noticed, I don't command a ship or crew anymore." Jonathon said  
  
"When you were about to destroy the Xindi weapon, I told you that if you died, this wouldn't happen." Daniels swept a broad hand towards the dais. "It's the same story, but this time it's Captain Ruiz, not you."  
  
Jonathon blinked as he let that sink in. "You're saying that all the factions of the Temporal Cold War are about to declare open war, and that _Columbia_ has somehow gotten caught in the mess. You're also saying that the future depends on Captain Ruiz's survival."  
  
Daniels nodded.  
  
Archer signed, and then pressed his lips together into a thin line. "You want me to go and find him."  
  
"There is no one else who has experience with the Temporal Cold War." Daniels pressed.  
  
"You're forgetting that I haven't commanded a mission in five years and I don't have a ship or crew." Archer persisted. A knot was forming in the pit of his stomach.  
  
Daniels looked at him slyly. "You still have _Enterprise_."  
  
"She was decommissioned five years ago!" Jon exclaimed. The brightness of the room was increasing again and Daniels was becoming blurry.  
  
"Find a way, Jonathon. The Federation must be formed, and for that to happen you need to find Ruiz."  
  
The brightness began to fade along with the voice, and soon Jon found himself standing at the threshold of his bedroom. He moved soundlessly to the bed and lay there, staring up at the distorted shapes and shadows coming from the street. He was not looking forward to tomorrow.  
  
TBC....  
  
A/N Continued: Yes, I referred to Jonathon Archer as 'Commodore'. Don't worry, all will be explained in due course. 


	2. Chapter 2

The following morning dawned bright and sunny, a direct affront to Jonathon's mood. He rose and went about his normal morning routine, attempting to convince himself that he had not gotten involved in another crazy plan to save the future. But he had never been one to successfully delude himself, and he said as much to Admiral Forrest an hour later. So as he stood while his old friend mulled over what he had said, Jonathon knew that he'd be going back into deep space whether he liked it or not.  
  
The admiral smoothed the downy grey hairs at his temple more out of habit than necessity and sighed. "Do you have any proof of this?"  
  
"Nothing more than a missing starship." Jonathon replied.  
  
"You've been right about these time travel matters before. It shouldn't be hard to convince the Command Council. But Jon," he paused, "how are you supposed to get out there?"  
  
When the commodore didn't answer, Forrest's eyes widened. "You can't be serious." He said. "She hasn't had more than basic maintenance in over five years, and those systems are almost a decade old. She doesn't even have a warp six engine."  
  
A surge of old pride welled up within Archer, and for a moment he felt a twinge of indignation that anyone should imply that his father's engine was outdated.  
  
"She may be past her prime but she's a tough ship. I know her like the back of my hand." He returned.  
  
"And that's another thing," Forrest began, "We stopped training people on those systems years ago. None of today's officers know her like your crew did, let alone petty officers or crewmen."  
  
"Crewmen can be trained on her quickly and learn as we go. And as for officers," He waited to see if Forrest would guess his request. Once again the admiral's eyes widened, only this time it was accompanied by emphatic shaking of his head.  
  
"That's impossible."  
  
"I need them. They have experience with _Enterprise_ and the Temporal Cold War." Jon insisted.  
  
"Some of them aren't even in Starfleet anymore, and those that are have other posts." "I need them."  
  
Silence descended on them as the contest of wills began. Eyes locked, jaws tightened until finally the admiral gave in.  
  
"All right. I'll get you a crew, but I'm not about to force your old officers into this. That's your territory; if you can get them to agree to go with you, I'll get them transferred for your mission.  
  
"Give me three days. If I know my officers like I think I know them, they won't have to think twice about this."  
  
Forrest's brow furrowed as he folded his arms over his chest. "Three days. Get your officers by then, I'll do what I can to give you your chance."  
  
The first vid-phone call was the easiest. The dark ocher haired man smiled in that warm manner that would never leave him.  
  
"Hey Jon, how are ya?"  
  
Jonathon decided not to reply honestly to that one. Instead, he launched straight into his reason for calling. It was explained in less than five sentences, and when he was done Trip was sporting the same tight-lipped look of resignation that always accompanied anything to do with their time traveling friend.  
  
"Well I guess there's nothin' else we can do." He finally said.  
  
"I know how busy you are with the warp seven project, Trip--" Archer began as an apology, but Trip's headshaking cut him off.  
  
"It's early yet; nothing that really needs me. And besides, I've been feelin' more than a little nostalgic for the old warp 5." He smiled. "So are you gonna round up all the senior officers?"  
  
Jonathon nodded, "As many as I can convince."  
  
Trip grinned, resembling for a moment the inexperienced, zealous young man he'd been when Jon had met him. "That shouldn't be too tough. See you in three days."  
  
The calls to Commander Reed and Lieutenant Sato went much the same way, and Jonathon was beginning to remember the pride he'd enjoyed as their commanding officer.  
  
"Back on _Enterprise_, sir? In a heartbeat." Had said Malcolm.  
  
"It's been a while since I had a chance to speak alien languages with natives." Hoshi had said, a slow, knowing smile gracing her features.  
  
The next people he tried to track down were newly promoted Lieutenant-Commander Mayweather and legendary Dr. Phlox. It had taken some searching, but in the end he found them. Their names were listed on the _Columbia'_s active duty roster.  
  
Archer stared at the letters, slowly realizing that this mission was personal now, personal in a way the Xindi Mission blessedly hadn't been. Travis and Phlox were among the missing. The young, unsinkable boomer who'd always reminded Jon of himself, and the doctor, quirky and unorthodox, but the very definition of brilliance.  
  
It was the grain of rice that tipped the scale. His face hardened as he typed another name into the computer. There was only one person left to contact now.  
  
But there was no mention of her. T'Pol's name did not appear on any duty rosters, nor was it listed in the Vulcan Ministry of Science. She had simply disappeared. He made the call to Soval.  
  
Over the years, the Vulcan ambassador certainly had not learned more tact in dealing with humans. More stubborn and haughty than ever, it was no surprise that the two avoided each other as much as possible. Jonathon was not looking forward to this conversation, or the exchange of thinly disguised insults that their conversations usually turned into.  
  
"I don't know where she is." The elder Vulcan stated. Jonathon, knowing full well the Vulcan habit of retaining information as long as possible, was not convinced.  
  
"You mean you haven't heard from her, or of her at all in the last five years?" he asked skeptically.  
  
Soval inhaled and expelled the breath sharply. "T'Pol left to pursue a life that had nothing to do with me or the High Command. The last time she contacted me, it was to tell me that she was leaving Vulcan again. I have heard nothing of her since."  
  
The manner in which the ambassador spoke of his former protégé grated on Jonathon's nerves. Although he too had lost contact with T'Pol, he still considered her a close friend.  
  
"I find it curious," Soval continued, "that _you_ are asking me about her. Were not you and she quite . . . close at one time?"  
  
Jonathon ground his teeth and counted to ten. "Thanks for your time." He said, closing the link.  
  
He sat back from the consol, massaging his eyes to relieve the dull ache. He needed a doctor, a helmsman and science officer. A memory of a conversation with T'Pol ran before his mind's eyes. "You need _me_, Captain." She'd said.  
  
Yes, he did need her. He needed all of them.  
  
At that moment the monitor chirped. Jon sat back up and greeted the Admiral.  
  
"I have the crew, helmsman and doctor included." He paused warily. "I'm assuming you know about them?"  
  
Jon nodded.  
  
"You'll have to add a science officer to the list." He said.  
  
"I just got a call from Soval," the admiral began. "he told me to tell you that he has someone who should fit the bill."  
  
Archer's eyes narrowed. "Another 'observer' from the High Command?"  
  
"No, this one's a civilian scientist. He's been here teaching at the Academy. And apparently he volunteered." Forrest answered.  
  
Jonathon considered it for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. "Alright."  
  
Forrest scrutinized him more closely, and Jonathon elaborated, "I stopped pre-judging Vulcans a long time ago. They know their science, and if he wants to come, I'll take him."  
  
Three days later, Jonathon experience déjà vu for the second time that week. And this time he was back on the bride, back in his chair. To his left sat Lieutenant Sato with her head cocked to one side, listening to space just as she had done every day for three years. Behind her sat Volen, the new science officer. Silent and unassuming, he was very different from the T'Pol who'd had no qualms pointing out that the coordinated were off by point two degrees. To his right was Commander Malcolm Reed, going over his consol with the same care that Trip was undoubtedly bestowing on his engine. And directly ahead of him sat Ensign Pallavi Kumar, his new pilot. She was fresh out of flight school, but if there was anything Archer could tell just by intuition, it was a good pilot.  
  
Jon smiled. He was still apprehensive about this mission, especially about his ability to get back into command mode after such a long hiatus. But it felt good to be back on Enterprise, and it felt good to know there were familiar people on board.  
  
"Are we ready?" He asked Volen.  
  
"Yes sir."  
  
He caught Malcolm's eye, and saw Hoshi's smile. They know what I'm thinking, he realized. The Commodore smiled and said for the second time in his life, "Take us out ensign, nice and steady."  
  
When he saw the endless stretch of black with it's pinholes of bright white, a mixture of peace and adrenaline washed over him. This was where he belonged, and he had a job to do.  
  
TBC... 


	3. Chapter 3

Hoshi Sato smiled to herself as she went about the mundane task of sifting through ship's communication. Who would have thought that she'd ever be out here again? And now here she was, back again in her seat on the bridge. It amused her to think how different she had become since _Enterprise_'s very first mission. Gone was the innocence, the wonder of a universe unexplored. She had been more of a linguist then, afraid of space and the situations they somehow always managed to get themselves tangled in. After the Xindi mission, it had taken five years of teaching to realize that she missed being on a starship. This time around, she was as much an officer as a student of languages, no longer claustrophobic, and with an impressive eighty percent firing accuracy listed in her profile.  
  
And she wasn't the only one to have changed, she noted. Commander Reed had definitely morphed into a new man. In part it was due to a woman named Cathryn, Malcolm's fiancée of two years. Hoshi had heard much of the fabled woman, who had reportedly won Reed's heart after kicking his ass in a training session. Hoshi smiled as she pictured the scene. It figured that it would take a woman with the ability to take him down to win Malcolm's heart.  
  
"Certainly feels strange being back on duty here." The subject of Hoshi's musings said absently. "Although I must admit, it was nice to find the armory exactly as I'd left it."  
  
Lieutenant Sato smiled. "I know how you feel. My earpiece settings are just the way I left them, as are my quarters."  
  
"It's too bad this little reunion couldn't be under happier circumstances, though." Sighed Reed.  
  
Hoshi nodded. The phrase 'Temporal Cold War" was synonymous with any number of un-pleasantries. More than anything however, it was especially upsetting that Phlox and Travis were among the missing. _And they aren't the only ones_, she thought, reminded of the Vulcan behind her. Or for that matter, the lack of one Vulcan in particular. More than anything, it would have been nice to have T'Pol's rock-steady presence at her back. Her's was another presence Hoshi hadn't missed until it was no longer there. In her place was a quiet, unassuming Vulcan civilian named Volen, minding his own business, speaking only when spoken to. He didn't have T'Pol's authority, the supreme capability to solve any problem without breaking a sweat.  
  
Hoshi sighed. Things were definitely different this time around.  
  


That evening, the Captain's private mess once again held himself, Trip, and a Vulcan.  
  
"I've definitely missed the dinners we had here." Trip said, cutting into his meatloaf with fervor. He glanced at Volen, and seeing no discernable sign of disgust, ventured,  
  
"This doesn't bother you?"  
  
"I have spent enough time with humans to be accustomed to meat." He replied, amber eyes curiously regarding the dish.  
  
Trip traded a glance with Jon before going back to his meal.  
  
"This is something we used to do all the time, back on our earliest missions." Archer explained.  
  
"With T'Pol, I presume?" Volen asked. The casual manner in which he dropped her name made Trip stare at him.  
  
"You know her?" he asked. Archer glanced at Trip. The tone of his question was unusual, but he let it go.  
  
"I have known her for several years."  
  
"Maybe you could explain?" Jon suggested to Volen. He too wanted to know how exactly his former science officer had known this man.  
  
"We served together as scientists on the Vulcan ship _Seleya_, which I believe you encountered several years ago." He began. Archer winced. _'Encountered'_ was not the word he thought of when it came to that particular ship.  
  
"After her transfer, she and I remained in contact. Following my resignation from the High Command, it was she who suggested I go to Earth. I remained there as an independent researcher until Ambassador Soval mentioned you were searching for her." Volen paused to take a sip of water, gaging the reaction of his companions to his story thus far.  
  
"Do you know where she is?" Archer asked.  
  
Volen replaced his glass carefully before meeting the Commodore's eyes. "I have not heard from her in nearly three years. In her last letter, she said she was leaving Vulcan."  
  
"And that was it?" Trip demanded, leaning towards Volen across the table. "No mention of where she was going, or why?"  
  
Volen tilted his head, studying the engineer so frequently mentioned in T'Pol's letters. "No, she did not reveal any other information. I assume you have also lost contact with her?"  
  
"Definitely more than three years ago, and not for lack of tryin'," Trip mumbled.  
  
"I'm sure she had her reasons." Volen said.  
  
Trip pulled his mouth into a small frown, nodding. If there was one thing he knew about her, it was that T'Pol always had a reason for everything she did. _If only I knew what the reasons were, once in a while_, he thought.  
  
"So what exactly made you volunteer to . . . take her place?" Jon asked. It sounded wrong, saying those words. But that was, in fact, what Volen had done.  
  
Volen sat quietly for a moment, formulating his answer as a steward cleared the table. "Her fascination with humans was always something I could understand. She lived aboard this ship for three years, despite ample opportunity to leave. It means she was devoted to you and your missions."  
  
He paused. "And I, in her absence, am honored to serve in her place." He finished, gazing straight at the two humans sharing the table. Silence settled over them comfortably; they had found some common ground.  
  
The quiet was interrupted as it had been so many times before; the claxons sounded, resonating through the metal corridors. Archer flew to the comm.  
  
"Archer to the Bridge; status."  
  
"I don't know what it is Captain." Reed called out, reverting for a moment back to Archer's former rank.  
  
"We're on our way." The Commodore responded. As Trip headed down to the engineering deck, Volen and Jonathon raced for the bridge. They arrived before the claxons had been silenced, Malcolm vacating the command chair as they exited the turbolift.  
  
"Report. And put us to tactical alert." Archer commanded as the infernal sound died away.  
  
"We seem to be venting atmosphere, Commodore." Volen said from the back of the bridge, hands gliding across the consoles.  
  
"That's impossible; there aren't any breaches." Commander Reed said.  
  
"Polarize the hull-plating Mr. Reed." Archer said, thinking fast. As soon as he had done so, Malcolm's face lost a little of its grimness.  
  
"We're no longer venting atmosphere, sir."  
  
"But that still doesn't tell us why we were venting it in the first place." Archer replied.  
  
"Sir," Hoshi began, one hand pressed tight against her ear, "I thought I was picking up something a few minutes ago, but dismissed it as background noise. There must be a lot of interference because now I'm just barely picking up an automated beacon."  
  
Archer rose from his seat, waiting to see which of his officers would identify the species first."  
  
"Confirmed, sir. It's a Vulcan beacon." Volen said.  
  
Archer's brows rose in surprise. He turned back towards Lt. Sato. "What's it saying?"  
  
She frowned and pursed her lips. "Some kind of warning, but it's pretty garbled."  
  
Archer noticed how Malcolm just barely rolled his eyes. "Nice of them to let us know so early." He muttered.  
  
The comm. sounded and Tucker's voice rang throughout the bridge. "I don't know what you people are doing up there, but that sudden polarization fried about a dozen relays on both the warp and impulse engines."  
  
Archer frowned. _Just a few days in and things are already starting to break_. "What do you suggest Mr. Tucker?" he asked, frustration adding a touch of gravel to his voice.  
  
"We're gonna have to shut off both engines for the time being, sir." Came Trip's reply.  
  
Archer pressed his lips together and set his jaw. "Do it. We'll just have to coast until we can figure this mess out. Archer out." He then proceeded to walk around the bridge from one consol to another, looking over his officers' shoulders as they searched for the answers they needed.  
  
"Commodore," Volen began, "I'm picking up a small colony on the third moon in this system, 0.003 light years off the starboard bow."  
  
Archer straightened at the news and headed back to his command chair.  
  
"On screen." He said.  
  
The colony was indeed quite small, about ten modules set up in a half circle compound, the buildings constructed of some kind of redish alloy. _So sturdy and practical. Logical._ Archer thought, and was suddenly reminded of color of Vulcan ships.  
  
"It's Vulcan." Voren said, confirming Archer's deduction.  
  
A double beep sounded softly from the Communication consol and all eyes were pinned on Hoshi as she identified it. "It's from the colony." She said, looking back towards Archer. He nodded his permission.  
  
The view of the little colony was replaced by a face. A delicately boned face accented by cropped glossy brown hair stared back at them. The expression in her eyes was one they all knew.  
  
They had found T'Pol.  
  
TBC......  
  
A/N: Okay folks, I am in serious need of a full time beta. I'm looking for someone to offer structural, plot and style advice as well as the ever- needed proof-reading. PLEASE help me to better my writing skills! Email me at olaw55hotmail.com if you are interested. 


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Sorry for the delay; it took me longer to pump this one out. The references you will find are from "Shuttlepod One" and "The Expanse", and a big thanks to Jenna for being my beta! ::hugs::  
  
T'Pol stared at the face before her as it stared right back. It had been several years since she'd seen Jonathon Archer, and the passage of time had certainly not gone unmarked. The grooves that separated the muscles of his face were more pronounced than she remembered, and his hair had faded in color. But his eyes, the same eyes that had darkened in fury or brightened in mirth were the same, and at the moment were twinkling at her.  
  
Seeing Commodore Archer again was surprising. Seeing _Enterprise_'s signature on her sensors was enough to make her briefly contemplate a visit to her colony's sickbay.  
  
"It's good to see you, T'Pol." He said, his grin stretching the loose skin taught over his facial bones.  
  
"It is good to see you too, Commodore, but perhaps niceties should wait." She said.  
  
Archer peered at her. "Something tells me you know why we suddenly began venting atmosphere out of nowhere."  
  
T'Pol arched her brow, a sign she knew her old friend would recognize. "I believe that should be discussed in person." She replied, exercising conscious will to keep her voice level.  
  
Archer smiled again, finishing the exchange with a simple "See you soon."_ Indeed_, T'Pol thought, _too soon_.  
  
As the screen resumed its normal view of the star system, T'Pol turned to the young woman at the communications station. "You're in charge until my return." She instructed. The young woman nodded as she resumed her duties. T'Pol rose from her seat and exited the main building of the compound, walking through a cylindrical shaft to the launch bay.  
  
Something strange was going on. _Enterprise_ had been retired several years ago, only to be brought out now for active duty. Furthermore, she was captained by the man who had led her out on every mission before. And most likely entrusted to the mechanical care of one Mr. Tucker. She moved automatically through the network of passages, her thoughts consuming her. Was she ready for this? It had been years since she had spoken to her companions on Enterprise. Indeed, the lack of communication had been her doing. But now they had come into her area of space, her sanctuary of peace and scientific logic, a place where emotion could not linger to haunt her thoughts or disrupt her sleep. How would she respond to them after so many years without them? Or more specifically, how would she respond to _him_? She entered one of the four Vulcan shuttles and performed the pre-flight checks, hands moving of their own accord across the keys as her eyes turned inwards, gauging her readiness for this encounter, the encounter she desperately, illogically wanted to avoid.  
  
Someone opened the launch doors from the main building, and T'Pol ignited the thrusters, speeding up towards Enterprise.  
  


Only moment later she was standing on the outer side of the starboard airlock, her body stiff, aware of every nerve in her body and every emotion she was trying not to feel. The door slid open in that characteristic hiss of human hydraulics, and she stood face to face with her last commanding officer.  
  
"T'Pol," He said, smiling less widely now. He looked uncomfortable as he moved forward then suddenly jerked back. _It is like he does not know how to greet me_, T'Pol thought. She clasped her hands behind her and offered a simple,  
  
"Hello Commodore."  
  
He seemed relieve to the greeting issue from her lips, as his mouth once again broke into a wide smile. He ushered her in and began to walk along the corridor, heading towards the turbolift. T'Pol walked alongside him, just as she had almost every day for three years.  
  
"I'll bet you're wondering how we came to be out here." He said, wasting no time. T'Pol looked at him and felt herself relax a little as he chuckled at her expression.  
  
"It's a long story," he explained, "probably something that can wait. Right now, I'd like to know what you're doing out here." They stepped out of the turbolift onto the bridge, and T'Pol felt herself being engulfed in a wave of nostalgia as she looked out on the familiar circular room.  
  
As she followed Archer around the consols to the Ready Room, two dark heads turned towards her from opposite sides of the room, both sporting smiles. T'Pol wondered why she was surprised to see Lt. Sato and Commander Reed at their old posts.  
  
"It's good to see you." Malcolm called out as came up to him, and she nodded in return. She raised her head to greet Hoshi as well when something else caught her eye.  
  
Silence fell over the bridge as T'Pol stared at the Vulcan occupying her former seat. _Of all people_, she thought to herself as Volen met her gaze.  
  
"Volen." She said, pleased with the seemingly casual tone of her acknowledgment.  
  
"T'Pol" he returned, and she was certain she saw amusement in his visage before his eyes flickered down to the consol again.  
  
T'Pol felt the curious eyes of the humans on her and turned back to Archer, disappearing after him into the safety of the Ready Room.  
  
The door slid shut behind her, and she breathed deeply of the scent of old books that still lined the shelves. She closed her eyes briefly as a myriad of memories flitted before her. When she opened them, Archer was perched on a corner of his desk, studying her.  
  
"How have you been, T'Pol?" He asked. Despite her efforts, she could not help but tense at the question.  
  
"I am well, Commodore."  
  
Her curt answer provoked a strange expression from him, but she ignored it.  
  
"How long have you been on the colony?"  
  
"Several years," she owned. "I established this colony as a civilian research post five years ago."  
  
Jonathon stood and moved closer to her. "You're pretty close to Earth."  
  
T'Pol knew what he was saying with that statement; she saw the question that lay beneath it. _Why didn't we hear from you?  
_  
She straightened and closed one hand tightly over the other in the small of her back.  
  
"You have wandered into a micro-singularity field. That is why you suddenly began venting air without any detectable breaches."  
  
Jonathon's eyes narrowed. "Micro-singularities? That sounds familiar."  
  
T'Pol nodded as her shoulders dropped. "During our first mission, when Mr. Tucker and Mr. Reed nearly suffocated in the shuttlepod—"  
  
"You said you had discovered micro-singularities; I didn't believe it." Archer finished, shaking his head. "So that's what you've been doing? Proving the existence of mini black holes and studying them?"  
  
T'Pol nodded. "You have wandered into a field that is densely populated with them. In fact, the next several light years in any direction lie within the field."  
  
Archer sat quietly for a moment, thinking about this newest piece of bad news. "I think we need to talk to Trip."  
  
T'Pol tried to slow her heart rate on the trip down to engineering, but to no avail. When she stepped foot on the threshold of Mr. Tucker's domain and saw him up on the Warp Engine, she could not fool herself.  
  
"Trip!" Archer called, and the engineer looked down with a frown on his face. But as soon as he noticed T'Pol standing behind him, the frown disappeared to be replaced with shock.  
  
T'Pol forced her eyes away until Captain Tucker had recovered enough to scramble down to meet them.  
  
"Look who we found on the moon we're orbiting." Archer said, stepping out of the way.  
  
T'Pol turned and looked at the man before her, her face like marble. "Captain Tucker." She said, pretending not to notice the soft inflection she had unwittingly added to the greeting.  
  
"T'Pol, it's . . . it's been a long time." He breathed, still staring.  
  
Whether Archer could feel the tension between them or simply wanted to brief Tucker, T'Pol did not know. But she, for one, was relieved when he stepped in.  
  
"T'Pol's been on that colony for five years studying micro-singularities." Archer began. At the word, Trip's eyes widened. _He remembers_, T'Pol thought. "We've wandered into a field of them that stretches for light- years in every direction."  
  
Trip's face puckered as he listened. "Well, we can't keep the hull plating polarized for the next couple of light-years. It'll take too much energy." He turned back towards T'Pol. "I don't suppose you've learned anything useful about micro-singularities these past five years?"  
  
T'Pol's eyebrow rose as she settled her arms over her chest. "As a matter of fact, I have. We've mapped out most of the field, and we have also been developing several types of shielding. With some help from the engineers on my colony, I should be able to make some useful modifications to Enterprise, with you permission."  
  
Archer smiled at her. "Perfect."  
  
T'Pol took out her communicator and sent her request to the colony. When she was finished, she turned back towards the humans. "While we're waiting, perhaps you could tell me why you are out here, and on Enterprise."  
  


T'Pol said nothing for a few moments after Archer had finished relating the story to her.  
  
"We encountered the NX-02 just 5 weeks ago." She finally said. Archer put his mug down.  
  
"What?"  
  
"They also came into the field and suffered minor damages. We modified their sensors and hull-plating, just as we will do for you."  
  
"So you know what direction they were headed in?" Archer pressed.  
  
T'Pol nodded. "They remained on our sensors for three days. I can show you the logs."  
  
Archer sat back in his chair, hands circling his mug. A chirp from T'Pol's robes and a comm. to Archer signaled the arrival of the Vulcan engineers. T'Pol stood to leave.  
  
"Let us know if we can do anything for you." Archer called after her.  
  
"We will." She said on her way out the door.  
  
"T'Pol," Archer stopped her again. She turned back, waiting. He smiled again, and T'Pol was beginning to realize just how much she had missed seeing smiles. "It really was good to see you again. And thanks for the help."  
  
She could feel her face soften. "It was good to see you as well, and you're welcome."  
  
T'Pol's team made the modifications within a number of hours under Mr. Tucker's supervision, leaving T'Pol idle. She avoided Engineering for most of the day, opting instead to go back and forth to the colony for any additional data that might be of use to Commodore Archer. Finally after eight hours, her team confirmed the modifications were functional. She went down to Engineering to see for herself, and as she ran one last diagnostic heard Tucker over her shoulder.  
  
"That's some team you have." He murmured, hypo-spanner in hand.  
  
"They are exceptional." She agreed, trying to focus on her diagnostic.  
  
Trip lingered behind her, shuffling his feet and looking around listlessly. "I, uh, just wanted to say that it was really nice to see you again. I can see how busy you are, running your own research colony."  
  
T'Pol could feel something caught in her chest, just behind her sternum. "You also have been busy. I've been following your progress on the Warp 7 project."  
  
Trip's head whipped around. "What?"  
  
T'Pol could hear her heart thundering, and quickly stepped away. "Everything appears to be functioning normally. Should the modifications be damaged, the original schematics have been placed in both the normal and redundant memory cores." She said over her shoulder, walking way towards the exit with Trip close on her heels.  
  
"T'Pol," he began, but he was blocked by an ensign for just a split second. That was all she needed, and when Trip looked up she was gone. _Again_.  
  
Knowing that he was no longer behind her, T'Pol took a deep breath. _I should go now_, she thought. But there was still one person she needed to see. She made her way to B-deck, guessing she would find Volen there. She went to her old quarters and stood before the door, seized by indecision. Her index finger reached out to the chime and she felt strange. It was strange to press the chime to the room she still considered to be hers. Although she wasn't sure what disturbed her more, her trepidation or the sense of ownership she still felt for a room on a Human starship.  
  
"Enter." He called from within, and she did. The lights were dimmed and it smelled of paraffin, just as it had when she lived there. The personal items made it look foreign, but beneath them T'Pol could still see her quarters as they once had been. She walked over to Volen, seating herself across from him on a mediation mat. He gazed at her.  
  
"I hope I'm not disturbing you." T'Pol said.  
  
"No, I had just finished."  
  
The emptiness of sound at one time would have been comfortable to T'Pol, but that was no longer so.  
  
"Why are you here?" She asked him.  
  
"Commodore Archer needed a science officer. I offered my services and he accepted." He replied, amber eyes flickering from deep within his irises with the reflection of the candle flame between them.  
  
"It has been many years since you and I have sat together, face to face." T'Pol said.  
  
Volen nodded.  
  
"How do you find it here, being the only Vulcan amongst eighty-some humans?"  
  
A glimmer of a smile formed on Volen's face. "I have lived on Earth for a time, as you suggested. I am accustomed to them now, and though I would not mind seeing more of our kind, I am content here."  
  
"You are an excellent scientist; no doubt they will need you." T'Pol said.  
  
Volen stared at her. "It is you they need, T'Pol."  
  
T'Pol was taken aback by his statement so much that it took her several seconds to reply. "I am needed on the colony."  
  
"You are needed here." He insisted gently. "You are needed because you are one of the few with real experience here. You know the systems, the strengths and weaknesses of the ship. And," he paused for effect, "you know all there is to know about this Temporal Cold War."  
  
"I cannot abandon my colleagues on the surface." T'Pol returned, feeling something akin to irritation stir within her ribs. "My commitment now is to them, to my research."  
  
"And what of your other colleagues, Lt. Mayweather and Dr. Phlox?" He asked. It was the right button to push, and now T'Pol did not feel irritation. Instead she felt only worry. She thought back to just five weeks ago when she had gone aboard the _Columbia_, had visited Phlox and Travis and wished them well on their voyage.  
  
She could not tell herself that she had felt nothing when she had not seen the young man at the helm, nor could she give a logical reason for having avoiding sickbay almost as much as she had avoided engineering that day.  
  
T'Pol rose abruptly. "I need to return to the colony."  
  
Volen said nothing, only raised his hand in salute. T'Pol did the same and left what had once been her quarters. But as she stepped into the turbolift, she pressed the button for the bridge. She did not think as she stepped onto it and waked to the Ready Room for the second time that day, nor did she stop to reconsider what she was doing. She pressed the chime to announce her presence.  
  


Archer was close to pacing, a habit he reverted to when something troubled him. "I can't let you do it."  
  
T'Pol had not moved from the position she had taken when she had made her request. "Sir." She said.  
  
"You know I'd love nothing more than to have you here with us again, but don't you have a commitment to the scientists down there? You've been with them for five years."  
  
"And I have trained them sufficiently enough that they can continue their work without me. I set up this colony as a means of occupation for civilian scientists, Capt—Commodore." She faltered only for a moment. "I can leave when I wish."  
  
"And what about Volen?" Archer asked, turning around. "If we take you, what do we do with him?"  
  
T'Pol was silent, but not because she didn't have an answer. Indeed, Volen had given the answer to her himself. "I think it reasonable to say that he wouldn't mind taking my place on the surface."  
  
Archer said nothing and still had his back turned towards her. T'Pol waited, weighing the options within herself. She could not say that she wasn't dreading this just a little, but neither could she let Enterprise fly away without her. She decided to use the last argument she had.  
  
"Nearly six years ago, I approached you with a similar request." She said quietly, coming up behind Jonathon. "I told you that you needed me."  
  
"I remember."  
  
"It is the same situation now as it was then. Let me help you."  
  
Archer turned around, scrutinizing her. Finally when he sighed and smiled faintly, T'Pol knew she had reached him.  
  
"You'd better go tell everyone and collect your things. We'll leave at 0500 tomorrow." He said, that old glimmer back in his eyes  
  
T'Pol nodded, and as she left the bridge couldn't but help feel this newest course of action would a solution to an unnamed problem within her. This would be her test, to see if she could once again live with humans. If she had recovered enough to live once more with _him_.  
  
TBC...


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Before you start with the whining about how long it took me to get this posted, I have two words for you: "Mononucleosis" insert joke here . . . done? Good and "College" more specifically, first year of college

That should explain the delay ;-) And because I took the time to write this amidst illness and the huge transition to college life, LEAVE REVIEWS, or I won't update again. Got it? Fantabulous! Read on!

It didn't take the long for the news to reach engineering. The crew whispered it as they went about their duties, their steps almost quicker because of some subtle change in the recycled air. _And why shouldn't they be?_ Trip asked himself. _With the mighty T'Pol here, nothing can go wrong._ He shook his head to clear it and swallowed down his feelings as he checked the polarity of another injector. Work was good for keeping those thoughts away, especially when the physical manifestation of said thoughts was just a few decks above.

"Sir, all damaged relays have been replaced."

The report came from a young lieutenant, a young man whose exuberance reminded Trip of puppy. Trip accepted the report, nodding his dismissal.

"I suppose you've heard, sir." The lieutenant said. Trip looked up with a tight smile.

"About T'Pol?"

The man grinned back knowingly, and Trip wondered if those rumors about him and T'Pol from the Xindi mission had survived so many years.

"The crew is excited that the Big Three are back together again, Captain. Especially since she seemed to drop right out of thin air." He turned smartly on his heel back to a consol, leaving Trip to reluctantly ponder. _Out of thin air is right,_ he mused. She had walked right back into his life as quickly and suddenly as she'd left. He glanced at the PADD that the Lieutenant had left on the table. _T'Pol probably needs to see it_. And with that final thought, Trip put the PADD in the corner farthest from him and promptly forgot about it.

It hadn't taken long for T'Pol to move her possessions to _Enterprise_. She told herself that it was simply a convenient by-product of complete organization, but in truth she knew it was because in all that time spent on the lunar surface, she had never really unpacked. Even after several years, she had never quite progressed to the point of being able to consider her colony a permanent arrangement. It had just been a detour between the major points in her life. As she moved her personal items into lockers and the shelf above the bunk, she paused to remember the organization of the room as it had once had been. Moving books and her candles into place was an indescribably calming activity, a sort of meditative dance. A dance that was suddenly ended when she went to place her clothes in the closet. Tunics and leggings had replaced her uniforms, something which she expected would take some time to get used to in this setting. Still, it could serve as a reminder. _Time has passed, things have changed. It will not be as it once was._

Finished with her domestic activity, she glanced at the Vulcan PADD that lay atop her desk. No doubt Commander Tucker would like to see what other schematics it held. But that could wait, she convinced herself. It was late now, and she needed to meditate before bed. _And tonight will surely require more time than is usually necessary._

The following morning, Jonathon awoke more rested and relaxed than he had in several weeks. Finally, things were going from bad to good instead of in the reverse order, which was how the universe usually chose to do things.

He stepped out onto the bridge and automatically took a quick glance around the consoles. Everything seemed to be in place until his eyes lit on the tightly coiled knot at the back of Ensign Pallavi's head. That prompted a thought about the non-Denobulan doctor in sickbay, and the relaxation drained instantly. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling his knees creak as he stepped down in front of T'Pol's consol.

Her dark eyes were cast down to peruse the steady stream of information, shifting only between monitors. The sight was familiar enough to have provided the commodore with no small measure of comfort, but there was none. It nearly caused him to frown, this discrepancy between the familiar sight of his science officer and the disturbing detachment that just barely radiated from her. He chose to dismiss it; there was enough on his mind at the moment without adding T'Pol to the list.

"What's our status?" he asked her. She did not bother to look up.

"We've been clear of the micro-singularity field for 4.2 hours. We are currently tracking the _Columbia_'s plasma decay trail, but it's very faint."

Archer stared at her for just a split second. It was like he was talking to the T'Pol who had told him that humanity wasn't ready to leave its own star system. He turned away, disappearing into his Ready Room without another word to anyone.

T'Pol did not know what had disturbed the Commodore, but did not give it much thought. _I do not know him anymore_, she told herself. But the gentlest feeling of concern was starting to niggle its way through her concentrated neutrality. She needed something to distract her. Glancing around her work station, her gaze lit upon the PADD she should have delivered to Captain Tucker the previous night. She could not decide which was a worse way to destroy her productivity, so she took the logical way out. She could not at the present moment do anything about the commodore's mood, but she could give Tucker the PADD. With a quick word to Reed, she left the bridge.

Walking down through the winding corridors, T'Pol couldn't help but feel a knot forming in her belly. Was this the right choice? Had coming back to _Enterprise_ been the right idea? She ducked beneath a railing and came to the Chief Engineer's office. Scenes of Neuropressure treatments and one particular night that she had spent years trying to forget whispered to her, almost lending themselves to the situation at hand like a subtle fragrance. She knocked twice before receiving the permission to enter.

Trip looked up from his desk and tried to keep from staring. She had actually sought him out.

"'Thought you were avoiding me." He said half jokingly, hoping it would mask whatever else he was feeling at the moment. T'Pol didn't respond to that, and in the shadows it was impossible to discern any shift in facial expression.

"This is the rest of the data from the lunar colony. It may provide useful if you are having difficulty with the modifications we made." She handed the PADD to him, her voice soft. Trip nearly winced to hear her speak in that hushed tone; it was the same one that still occupied his dreams.

"Nah, that's alright. Schematics, whether they're Vulcan or Human are pretty much the same," he nodded towards her, gently smiling, "logic and all that."

She didn't even raise an eyebrow as she replied, "Indeed." She turned on her heel and left the office, closing the door behind her. Trip rubbed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

What he would have given for just a raised eyebrow.

He glanced down at the PADD, its surface glowing and punctuated with blinking squares across the bottom.

It finally hit him then, at that very moment when he mourned the loss of that enigmatically raised eyebrow. She was gone. The T'Pol that had just left his office was not the woman he'd once cared for. Hell, maybe even loved. _I've spent way too much time chasing a dream_, he realized. He pushed himself away from the desk and went out to his beloved albeit obsolete warp core and decided to treat this mission like what it was: closure. On so many levels, this was closure. Or at least, he amended, it was going to be.

T'Pol, instead of returning to the activity of the bridge, decided to finish her work from her quarters. Perhaps it had not been wise to visit Mr. Tucker. _No, do not think that way, _she admonished herself. She stood straighter and quickened her steps. She kept her mind purposefully blank, knowing that any number of the thoughts that were vying for prominence would have unpleasant effects. Once reaching her quarters, she took a few deep meditative breaths. _I can do this_, she told herself. Even at that moment, she knew it was not the work that lay so logically organized on the PADD that she was thinking of.

A chance glance at the monitor provided the necessary respite from herself. She examined it closer, and was surprised to discover a deviation in the projected path of _Columbia_ from the actual path the ship had taken. She settled herself into her chair and almost with a sigh of relief, began to apply logical thought to the problem at hand.

Yet it seemed logic was not coming easily to her today. Thirty minutes into her analysis, she still could not find a logical reason for such a discrepancy between the ion trail and the projected course of the other craft. Worse, as _Enterprise_'s sensors swept ahead, it was becoming significantly more difficult for the computer to isolate the trail. There were a number of other ion trails polluting the one she was tracing, and that information by itself was enough to raise a flag. Another half hour of intense scrutiny brought her to a halt. Just three and a half days away from the lunar colony, the _Columbia's_ decaying plasma trail ceased to continue.

T'Pol checked the chronometer in the corner of her monitor and decided pay a visit to Archer. He was in his quarters when she arrived, the worn water polo ball on the crook of his arm. Glancing around the stateroom, T'Pol was awash in memories again. She instinctively braced herself for the pungent aroma of Porthos, and felt a strange sadness when she realized he was probably dead.

"What's going on?" Archer asked, his face no longer sporting the strange expression from that morning. At the moment, he looked like the friend she had once cherished so much. The friend she had not allowed herself to miss.

"It's the plasma trail." She explained, handing the PADD to him. As he took it, she thought about putting her hands behind her back, but instead let them rest at her sides. Archer frowned as he looked over the information.

"This makes no sense." He said, echoing her sentiments. "Why does it start to waver and get fainter, and then just all of the sudden disappear?" he looked up at her from his bed, as though she had the answers.

"I don't know." She answered. "However, the presence of the other ion trails may have something to do with it."

Archer nodded, and then said "this is what, two days away?"

"At our present speed, yes."

He nodded, rising slowly. T'Pol was almost hoping he would start to pace, but he merely remained standing in front of her. "Tell Ensign Pallavi to increase speed to Warp 4.5."

T'Pol's eyebrow climbed her forehead, and Archer tried to suppress a smile.

"Captain Tucker won't be happy." She said quietly. Archer laughed.

"No, he definitely won't. Maybe you should make sure those modifications your team made don't have any unexpected effects, or else he might make up some brand new phrases." He suggested behind a half smile. She rewarded him with another patented T'Pol look; this one of mild reproach. She took the proffered PADD from him and left, heading down to engineering once more.

Except Trip wasn't there anymore. She checked the mess hall but when she saw he wasn't there either, knew there was only one other place he could be. She was able to get to his quarters, but found herself strangely unable to press the chime that would announce her presence. A tendril of panic crept into her spine, but she shook it off and steeled herself. She would not allow emotion to compromise her again.

She pressed the chime, and then did it again just because she could.

Trip stood there as the door slid aside, his uniform now creased from a full day of wear. He hooked his hands around the frame, lounging.

"'Something I can do for you?" He asked not unkindly, stepped back from the door to let her come in. She stepped through and paused just inside the door, unsure where to go from there. He took a seat on the bunk, indicating with a gesture that she should make herself at home on the desk chair.

Yet, she remained standing at the threshold of the room.

"The commodore just gave the order to increase speed to Warp 4.5." she said. Trip groaned and ground his fists into his eye sockets.

"And why would he do that?" he asked.

T'Pol came forward and showed him the PADD. "There's been a change in the direction and clarity of the plasma decay."

Trip took the PADD, and then looked up at her while patting the bed. "Sit down."

When she hesitated, he gave her his best coaxing face. "I'm gonna need to go over those new specs so I know what to expect from the engine."

T'Pol could not argue with this, and sat down at his side. The mattress sagged gently, bringing their bodies to brush lightly against each other. Neither wanted to acknowledge the proximity, so they focused instead on the platonic problem of work. It was explained fairly quickly, and Trip found himself wishing there was more to it.

He had missed this; the companionship they provided for one another as they worked on a problem. As he sat next to her in silence, he somehow got the feeling that T'Pol had missed it too.

"So," he began, excusing himself in the name of closure, "how have you been?"

It was a stupid way to start a conversation with the Vulcan; he knew she'd see right through it. It was odd how that very realization comforted him.

"I've been well. After leaving Earth, I returned to Vulcan for a few months. Then I gathered a group of colleagues and founded the lunar colony."

Trip nodded. He hadn't expected much more. Still, he had nothing to lose. Not anymore.

"You seem different." Again, he knew it was a stupid thing to say to her. But this time, instead of the typical vague Vulcan answer, she was silent. Trip looked at her, curious. What was she hiding?

"Upon my return home, I sought help in controlling my emotions. You remember I had a difficult time with them during the Xindi Mission." Her voice was soft again and Trip shivered. T'Pol glanced at him, but he looked away. He couldn't bear to see that look on her face again.

"So . . . you're better?" he asked, for lack of anything else to say. Again, T'Pol was silent for a second before replying.

"Yes," she finally said, "I'm better." She rose from the bunk and walked over to the door.

"Good night." She said.

"Night."

She left, and Trip pulled the sheet up over his head as he silently cursed himself. This was going to be a hell of a mission. Two floors up and around a corner, T'Pol was getting ready to meditate, changing her clothes and lighting her candles on autopilot. Just before her mind emptied of all thought, she wondered for the hundredth time whether or not coming back was a good idea. Or rather, whether it had been a good idea to leave in the first place.

TBC....


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I've never seen TOS, so all I know of the Tholians is based of "Future Tense" and some research on Also, spoilers for "Damage" are scattered around. And yay, I got this out in only two weeks! And as always, a huge thanks and hug to Jenna for being my beta.

At first he thought it was a nightmare. The sound of claxons, once affectionately known as the Reed Alarm, shook Trip from his already troubled dreams. He dragged on some pants as he stumbled out the door in a blind rush to engineering. Ensigns and crewmen ran past him, and it was with no small amount of irony that he realized some things truly were unchanging.

"What's the problem?" he shouted, wondering what was taking so long to shut off the claxons.

"Everything seems to be working fine, sir." Lt. Montgomery yelled over the din as he climbed up beside her to the main consol. Trip gave everything a quick once over, his brow creased as he confirmed what she had said.

"Bridge to Engineering" Archer's voice resonated through the large metal room.

"Cap'n," Trip said, reverting back to old habits, "what the hell's goin' on?"

"We don't know, we're caught in some kind of force field. Is there anything you can do to break us free?"

Trip grimaced at the typical request. "We're already at 4.5. I can't push the engines anymore without doing some serious damage."

"All right, keep tight down there." Archer said before cutting off the link.

_Keep tight, yeah right_, Trip thought, checking out the other ship systems. It was times like these that he wished he spent more time on the bridge. _It'd be nice to know things as they happen, just for once._

Up on the bridge, Archer had fallen into the familiar habit of wishing he'd remained a pilot and never been promoted.

"Who are they?" he asked T'Pol, grasping the bar at the front of her consol. She looked up at him, her expression unreadable yet lacking the neutrality he was expecting. Her face, tinted blue by the dark lighting of the Tactical Alert, looked strangely young.

"Tholians" was all she said. That rang a bell somewhere in the Commodore's memory, but he couldn't place it.

"Bloody hell, sir they're closing on us and the field is starting to exert pressure on the hull." Malcolm cursed.

Archer looked at him hard, and then thumbed the comm. at the helm consol.

"Trip?"

"Yessir?" Trip called.

"Shut off the engines." Archer said through tight lips.

"Cap'n?"

"We need to polarize the hull plating. The field is going to crush us if we don't." He looked towards T'Pol for confirmation, and she nodded.

"Aye, sir." Trip said. A moment later, the gentle thrumming of the engines was gone as power was rerouted to the hull-plating.

"How do we stand on weapons?" Archer asked, striding over to Reed's station.

"Full complement sir, but we don't stand much of a chance against those three vessels." The weapon's expert looked up at his commanding office, blue eyes glinting with reflections of red and yellow from numerous panels in front of him.

"I've scanned them. Their weapons are comparable to ours, but they're fast. I could take out one, maybe two before major systems are disabled."

Archer said nothing when Malcolm stopped talking. He knew they didn't have a chance. _This was probably what happened to Columbia,_ he thought. He turned around once again to T'Pol. If there was a way out of this she would have mentioned it by now, but he went to her again anyway. They said nothing as they exchanged a look. She looked at him, her expression soft; a semblance of the T'Pol he had relied on so heavily. He knew she understood him.

"Little is known about Tholians, but the last time we encountered them, it had something to do with the Temporal Cold War."

Archer nodded. He turned to Lieutenant Sato, who already had one hand poised over the keys and the other pushing her earpiece into better position. In a fleeting thought, he appreciated her ability to anticipate his actions.

"Hoshi," he began. She nodded and in seconds had a channel opened to one of the Tholian vessels.

"I'm Commodore Jonathon Archer," he stated, standing in front of the view screen. The image didn't change as the sounds of a clicking, squealing and barking language came through.

Sato's hands flew across the board, trying to clean up the translation.

"Hull pressure nearing critical," Reed warned.

A handful of words, "entering . . . disarm . . . alien vessel" came though the com before it was cut off, but before Archer could even give the order T'Pol called out an update.

"Eight vessels approaching at high warp."

"Please tell me they're not Tholian." He begged, easing himself down into the captain's chair.

"I think you'd prefer they were." She said, her tone bordering on wry. "They're Suliban cell ships."

Archer closed his eyes and paid reluctant homage to Murphy's Law.

"Captain," Reed said, "they're firing on the Tholians."

"So now we're caught in the crossfire?" Archer demanded, standing once again.

"We're still in the force field sir, but the Tholian weapons are drawing power away from it. We could attempt an escape." Macolm offered.

Archer gave him a tight grin. "Hope you're in a mood to shoot someone." He said.

Malcolm grinned back. "Always, sir."

The com sounded and Trip's voice flooded the bridge. "Anyone want to tell me what's going on out there?"

"Right on time Trip," Archer said, ignoring Tucker's irritated tone, "full power to the engines, now." He then addressed Pallavi at the helm, "Ensign,"

They reeled around, freeing themselves from the disintegrating energy web with sheer force. Coming about, they fired on the retreating Tholian vessels. Once they were gone, a double beep sounded from the communication consol. Archer turned expectantly in Lt. Sato's direction.

"Sir." She said, indicating there was a hail coming through. He nodded and squared his shoulders, fairly certain of what was to come.

The view of the Suliban vessel blinked into a face, one he knew quite well. But this time, unlike all the previous times, Jonathon Archer was not surprised to see Silik. His pebbled face hadn't changed, just as his smoldered yellow eyes retained their perpetual smugness.

"Captain Archer." He said, the smugness in his eyes verbalized now in that insufferable voice.

"Actually, it's Commodore." Archer responded. "I suppose I should thank you for getting those Tholians off our backs."

The smugness in the Suliban's face increased three fold. "I'm not a philanthropist, Captain. I have a proposition for you, and if you don't comply I'll fire on you as well."

Archer thought for a moment, just staring at the image of his most frequently recurring enemy. "I'll be there in 10 minutes." He answered.

Silik ended the communication, and before Archer could even turn around his senior crew began to bombard him with doubts.

"He's nothing but trouble, sir." Malcolm said. "It's likely to be a trap."

"I agree with Commander Reed." T'Pol said from her station.

Archer looked at the two of them. "It might be a trap, but it might not be."

T'Pol made a motion to say something again, but Archer silenced her with a raised hand. "If he didn't need us, he wouldn't have saved our lives. He needs something, and I intend to find out what that is."

He turned to Malcolm. "Get two people and meet me in Launch Bay 1." Reed promptly left his consol, and on his way out Archer called out over his shoulder to T'Pol, "You're in command."

He was stepping into the turbolift when she stuck her hand into it, triggering the motion sensors that prevented the door from closing.

"You can't leave." She hissed, her eyes glinting hard. Archer narrowed his eyes at her. "We don't have time for this." He replied, extending his hand to knock hers out of the door's way. She grabbed his wrist and squeezed, making Jon grit his teeth.

"If he needs you, he can wait." T'Pol said. Her tone was soft, but beneath it Jon sensed a good deal of tension, and it triggered a memory of darker days. "_I won't let you do it!" she had screamed. Then in one smooth motion had thrown all control out of the airlock as she smashed the PADD on his desk."_ Archer had never found out what had happened to her, but the look she was giving him now, plus that fact that she was actually touching him, was too unusual to ignore. _I shut myself off from her before,"_ he thought, _"I won't do it again. Never again."_

He looked back at Reed, who nodded, and exited the turbolift. T'Pol released her grip on him and followed Archer to the Ready Room. He stepped inside and turned to face her as she also stepped in. Her face was downcast, her arms stiffly entwined at her back. He waited for her to begin.

"I apologize for my display." She said. It was clipped and delivered in a monotone, and Archer recognized it in an instant. He was used to this game.

"What's going on?" he demanded, knowing there was only one way to beat Vulcan prevarication.

"This is unwise." She said, raising her face.

"We have no choice." Archer reminded her. He peered at her, expecting her to throw some logic at him. But there was none. She remained stoically silent, like a scolded Vulcan child. He was getting impatient and shouldered his way past her when she finally finished the prevarication game.

"What if something happens to you?" she challenged, whirling around again to argue with him head on.

"Then you'll carry on, just like you have every other time that I've left you in command." Archer said. He was getting worried now. Her facial muscles were twitching; a collapse of her Vulcan composure seemed imminent again. Her eyes were wide and erratic, and he could tell by the flexing of her arm muscles that she was fighting hard to keep her hands clenched. Archer made a decision at that moment, betting on their friendship that some human comfort just might work right now. He slowly brought his hands up and placed them just below her deltoids, squeezing them gently.

"What's wrong?" he asked, just as he should have asked over and over at the climax of the Xindi Mission.

T'Pol took a deep breath and closed her eyes, breathing meditatively until Archer took his hands away. When she opened her eyes again, she was her old self.

"I can't be in command." She said. It was simple, and yet it left so much unsaid.

"Why not?" Archer asked.

She took care to enunciate her words carefully, another Vulcan trick that Archer was overly familiar with. "I do not wish to be in command again."

"Again, _why not_?" Archer pressed. As much as he wanted to get to the bottom of this, he had to go. Now.

"I just can't, Commodore. I will not be left in command." She restated, adding a touch of steel to her tone. Archer huffed in frustration, staring at her while he thought as rapidly as he could. He needed to count on her, but if she said she couldn't be in command, she no doubt had a good reason for it.

"All right." He finally said, "Get Trip up here." T'Pol nodded, though she didn't relax as Archer expected her to. But there wasn't anymore time to ponder her strange behavior. He left the Ready Room and the bridge, preparing himself to deal with Silik.

TBC.....


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Sorry for the delay, midterms are draining the life out of me. As always, thanks and hugs to Jenna for beta-ing!

"T'Pol to Tucker." The science officer said, perched in the captain's chair. She closed her eyes, unable to stem the feelings of guilt. _This was a mistake_, she thought_ I should not have come back. I'm not ready._

"Tucker here." The thought of having Trip up there with her was a powerful one, and only in passing did T'Pol marvel at how quickly she'd re-associated feelings of comfort with him.

"Please come to the bridge." She asked him.

"T'Pol," Lt. Sato began, "I've got locks on their comm. signals."

T'Pol nodded, bringing the scans up on the armrest. There were four little red dots traveling away from _Enterprise_ in the shuttlepod, carrying two members of the senior staff. She closed the panel, unable to look at it anymore. Fortunately, Trip walked in at just that moment.

"What's going on?" He asked. T'Pol rose and walked to the situation room, knowing that he was following.

"The Commodore, Commander Reed and two of his security team have gone to the lead Suliban ship.

"Suliban?!" Trip asked, the expression on his face matching the incredulity in his voice. "Oh no, don't tell me --"

"It's him." T'Pol confirmed, crossing her arms in front of her to give her frame a more solid appearance.

"Figures." Trip said, leaning one fist on the large consol at his side. "So what am I doing up here?"

T'Pol shifted, forcing herself to look into his eyes. "You've been placed in command."

Trip raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"You're in command." She repeated, moving to sidestep him and get back to her consol. But Trip would have none of it. In one deft movement he blocked her escape and crossed his own arms.

"You've always been the second. Why the change?" he wanted to know.

She said nothing, reverting back to something she hadn't done since the first year of their original mission. She stared him down in the manner he had named the "ice-queen-look". Trip stared right back, his jaw tensing. _What the hell...?_ Was all he could manage to think. She hadn't pulled that one in years. For some reason, it amused him just as much as it pissed him off.

"All right." He finally said, inching over just a bit to let her through. He made it so she had to brush against him as she went, something he considered payback for the "ice-queen look". Never mind the fact that it raised goose-bumps over his body.

He turned and went after her, gingerly seating himself in the command chair. It felt weird, but he put the thought out of his head as the data came streaming through the networks to the consols under his forearms. He sighed, thinking back to just about twenty minutes before, when he'd actually wished to be on the bridge. Just like he'd wished so hard and so long to see T'Pol again. _Be careful what you wish for Tucker. It likes to come and kick you in the ass.  
_

_   
_

Standing face to face with his old enemy, Archer couldn't help but feel a sense of severe déjà vu. But, he noted, this time it was he who held the upper hand. At least he hoped so.

"What do you want?" He asked bluntly. The other man did not smile as Archer expected. His pebbled skin did not stretch taught over his modified bones, and his eyes looked dead.

"I need the Temporal devices your agent Daniels left on your ship several years ago". It seemed the Suliban didn't want to be coy, something which Archer found to be very strange indeed. He looked at Reed quizzically.

"Why would you need that?" He inquired.

Silik glared at him, the deadness in his face replaced lighting-fast with the sly aggression that Archer was used to. He nodded to his guards, who trained their weapons in the space between the humans' eyes. Reed and his men responded in kind, despite the obvious fact that they were outnumbered.

"That," he clarified, "is none of your business."

"Considering that it's human equipment on _my_ ship, I'd say it is my business." Archer retorted.

"You are outnumbered and your ship is practically falling apart." Silik said, his voice grating on Archer like the underbelly of a snake on ground. At his bristle, Silik sneered "We scanned you. We both know who the victor would be in a skirmish. Give me what I need and I will leave your ship to disintegrate by itself."

Archer frowned. He needed to twist this situation around, to gain the upper hand. And it was going to be tricky.

"I'm not going to blindly hand the technology over to you." He stated, enjoying the expression on his adversary's face. "You can blow us up, but it still won't get you what you need." He stopped, waiting to gage the affect of his words on Suliban. When Silik's sour expression deepened, he congratulated himself on his little use of logic. _T'Pol would be proud_, he thought. But instead of answering his question, Silik posed one of his own.

"And what are _you _doing out here in that ancient ship of yours?"

"We're trying to find the NX-02 _Columbia_, another human ship. It disappeared a few weeks ago." Archer said carefully, watching Silik's face. It remained too neutral, and he would bet his life on the hunch that the Suliban knew more than he was letting on.

"Would you happen to know anything about it?" he prompted. He noticed that the other Suliban had lowered their weapons, as had his own three men. Silik looked like he wasn't going to give him the information he needed, but suddenly seemed to change his mind.

"I know where it is being held. I'll tell you after you give me the temporal technology." He said quickly. It was too fast, and Archer knew he had him now.

"We haven't gotten to that yet." He began, holding up a hand to stay any exclamations. "First, tell me why you're out here, and why you need the technology so badly."

Silik stared at him stonily. "We have lost contact with the future. We are acting blindly now, trying to mass our forces for the war."

"We?" Archer asked.

"The Kabal." Silik answered.

Archer nodded. "So you need Daniels' technology to help you get in contact with the future, and I need to know how to get to the _Columbia_. Sounds like we can help each other."

"So we have a bargain?" Silik pressed.

"Take us to the ship, and then we'll give you the technology." Archer said firmly. Silik visibly stiffened. "We're no threat to you, you said so yourself." Archer reminded him. "Once we get there, I'll give it to you." He left the offer standing, making no more amendments. Silik seemed to vacillate between accepting and rejecting the offer, but in the end, his never-ending need for instruction won the battle. He nodded and turned, leaving the humans with their guards. They were shown to the airlock in silence, and it was only once they were back in the shuttlepod and flying back to _Enterprise_ that Malcolm ventured a question.

"What exactly are you up to, sir?"

Archer smiled a little, but it was a grim smile. "Meet me in the situation room in ten minutes." He said.

"You said what?" Trip asked, the incredulity etched into his face. Beside him, T'Pol expressed similar sentiments to Archer.

"Sir, how do you intend to keep this bargain? Daniels' technology is on Earth."

Archer found it hard to look at T'Pol. He didn't know how to tell her that he had once again compromised his ethics. Like the last time, when he chose to attack the – ship, he had no other choice. And he knew that like last time, she was going to give him hell for it. "We're not going to keep the deal." He said, looking more towards Trip than the woman behind him.

"You're going to con him?" Commander Reed asked, tight arms folded over his equally tight chest.

"We're going to bluff." Archer clarified, noting the subtle change in T'Pol's demeanor. "It's the only thing we can do."

"And what will you do once we reach our destination?" T'Pol challenged, her eyes glinting. Archer knew that look. She knew there was more to the plan, and she knew she wasn't going to like it.

"We're going to need a way in once we get there." Archer said carefully.

"And that is . . . ?" Lt. Sato prompted. Archer looked back at T'Pol and Trip. The two people he trusted most in the whole world. At least one of them was going to be pissed at him in a second.

"I'm leaving that to you two." He said. T'Pol's eyebrows rose in what could only be the Vulcan equivalent of indignation, while Trip merely nodded. T'Pol noticed his reaction and shot a look at him. Trip either hadn't seen it or chose to ignore it. Archer watched the interplay with interest and almost pitied Trip as much as he pitied himself. No doubt she would have words with both of them.

"Get to it." He said by means of dismissal. Trip headed for the turbolift, T'Pol following in his wake. Reed and Sato resumed their consols as Archer took his chair.

"Open a channel, Lieutenant." Archer said. Silik appeared on the viewscreen. "We're ready when you are." He told his adversary. Silik said nothing and closed the channel as his entourage of ships went to Warp.

"Lay in a pursuit course, Ensign." The commodore said to the helmswoman.

TBC....


	8. Chapter 8

Trip left the situation room, heading for the turbolift. T'Pol began to follow him, but decided that she need to speak with Archer first. She waited until the other officers had also resumed their posts before she turned to the Commodore.

"May I have a word with you?" she asked. Archer looked at her as if to say it was pointless, but he extended his arm towards the Ready Room. T'Pol walked down the two steps and waited for the door to close behind him before she spoke. But before sound could issue from her lips, he beat her to it.

"I know what you're going to say, T'Pol. I don't like it either, and if there's another way I'm open."

_That was unexpected_, she thought to herself. She had been prepared to argue her point against him, but that approach was now superfluous.

"This plan carries significant risk." She said, "Deceiving Silik will be difficult, and making him cooperate with us even more so."

Archer sat at his desk and leaned back in the chair, regarding her. "Do you have a better plan?"

T'Pol knew she didn't, and told him so. "But," she added, "That doesn't make this course of action acceptable."

Archer stood and faced the window. "We've had this argument before," he reminded her. "It may not have been right . . . but it was done for the good of Earth."

T'Pol watched him closely. "I know." She said, waiting for him to continue. Suddenly she got the feeling this was harder for the Commodore than she had previously believed. She had heard enough to believe he was still having difficulty with some of his decisions in the Expanse. She sympathized with him.

He swung back around to face her, his face set. "I can't undo what I did five years ago, and if I could, I wouldn't."

Again, T'Pol waited. She knew this justification wasn't for her benefit; it was for his.

"We don't have another choice," he reiterated, "I've already laid the ground work, but I want to do this right, with as little injury to both parties. That's why I need you and Trip to work on this. I know if there's a way, you'll find it." And with that, he turned back around and was silent.

T'Pol stood behind him, thinking. It seemed irresponsible to her, his starting something and asking her and Captain Tucker to finish it. But, she mused, her demand not to be left in command was also irresponsible. Her suspicions were confirmed, and her empathy made her turn and walk out the door without another word of argument. In one respect, Archer was correct. They needed to find _Columbia_, and there seemed only one way to do it. She made her way down to engineering, where she found the blonde captain in his office, as she had predicted.

"You finished scoldin' him?" He asked, his face strangely smug. T'Pol raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't scold him." She said, pulling up the free chair and seating herself.

Trip wasn't convinced. "I saw that look on your face when he outlined the plan."

"I may not approve of the plan, but I haven't come up with an alternative." T'Pol replied.

Trip nodded. "So how are we going to do this?" he asked, pulling out a PADD.

"Silik doesn't trust anymore than we do him." She began. "We need to turn on him before he turns on us." Her facial muscles contorted of their own accord in distaste.

"And once we get to _Columbia_, we're going to need to keep _Enterprise_ safe too." Trip said, watching her closely. He didn't have a clue how to formulate this plan; sabotage and intrigue weren't his specialty. But T'Pol had been in reconnaissance, and he was willing to bet that she'd known exactly how to do this since the Commodore had first mentioned it.

"How are we going to do this, T'Pol?" he asked her. T'Pol looked at him, and saw something behind those alien blue eyes.

"You believe I already know?" she quipped. Trip didn't need to respond in the affirmative, and T'Pol fought the uncomfortable feeling that was blossoming in her stomach.

"Judging by his willingness to take us there himself, I'm guessing the area is under Suliban control."

"Go on." Trip said, leaning closer.

T'Pol paused and pursed her lips, perhaps anticipating his reaction to what she was about to say. She took a deeper breath. "When he comes aboard for the temporal technology, we'll need to disable him and the other cell ships. We'll have to make him pose as having commandeered _Enterprise_. Anything further will have to be planned once we have more information, but that, so far, is the plan."

Trip blinked. "That's the craziest idea you've ever had."

"Given what I have to work with, it's the best I could come up with." The Vulcan retorted, unsure whether he was being serious or humorous. "Do you have a better idea?"

Trip ignored her question, his forehead creasing as he calculated just how precise this whole operation would have to be. "How exactly are we supposed to disable half a dozen tiny Suliban ships, not to mention pull off this charade once we get there? There's a million tiny things that could go wrong and give us away.

"The details need to be planned and practiced to perfection." T'Pol said, knowing full well how difficult it was going to be. She looked at Trip and was surprised to see him smiling at her.

"I've missed this." He said.

"Planning a dangerous course of action and hoping we come out of it alive?" She queried, one eyebrow half hidden by the hair that covered her forehead. She knew what he meant, but couldn't resist the opportunity to see him smile again. Better yet, Trip laughed, and T'Pol felt a surge of adrenaline course through her.

"Well, they always do make for good stories later," he chuckled, but in an instant he lost the ease of the humor. "But I've missed more than that."

T'Pol found her instinct to breathe was being strangely repressed.

She wasn't saying anything, wasn't even moving, and Trip wasn't sure whether that was a good or a bad sign. Despite his doubts, his found his mouth was opening and more was issuing forth, bubbling up and out in some last attempt to reach her.

"I miss spending time with you, arguing with you, seeing you everyday . . ." he paused, regaining his senses enough to restrain himself. "It's been hard." He finished quietly, daring a look at her to see if she was reacting at all. He felt like an idiot who couldn't take an old blatant hint, but he'd said it. The question now was, how was she going to respond?

"We should get to work." She said softly, her eyes averted. When she hazarded a glance at him, Trip wasn't smiling anymore. He nodded and paged Commander Reed and stared at his folded hands while they waited in silence for Malcolm to arrive.

* * *

Malcolm stared at the pair before him in utter disbelief. "Who the hell came up with this?" he asked, incredulity adding color to his usually formal voice. Captain Tucker glanced at T'Pol while she leveled her gaze at Commander Reed.

"That is irrelevant." She said.

Malcolm, resisting the urge to shake his head at the folly that had just been related to him, turned back to Tucker. _An odd place to look for rationality_, he thought to himself. "Sir," he began, "this is madness. There's no way we can pull it off." He began to count off the flaws on his fingertips. "Not enough man power, fire power, and do I honestly need to remind you just how narrowly we've come out of each scrape we've had with the Suliban?"

"As far as I can see, Commander," T'Pol began, "the Commodore has narrowed our already small selection of viable options. This course of action, if planned well, has a chance of success."

"How great a chance?" Malcolm asked, to which T'Pol replied,

"Greater than any other ideas that have been considered."

Commander Reed looked back once more at Trip, who shrugged his shoulders and turned his own eyes away. He sighed. "All right. Let's start talking about the details."

* * *

It was only after three hours of intense planning that all three were satisfied with the plan. "We can start drilling people in the morning." Malcolm said with a sigh, twisting to get the kinks out of his back.

"I'll take this to the Commodore." T'Pol said. Checking helm status from the consol in the office, she added, "We have approximately four days."

Trip nodded and stood, careful to avoid banging his head on the low support beams running the length of the office. "All right," he said, "Let's get to work." They left the office and went back to their respective decks. The tactical officer and engineer busied themselves while they awaited word from the acting science officer.

T'Pol approached the Commodore's quarters and announced her presence with the chime. He called out for her to enter, and as she did T'Pol was surprised to see that Archer wasn't watching water polo or playing with the yellow ball. Instead he was reading, and upon closer inspection of the books that lay around the cabin, realized he was reading children's books. T'Pol did not know what to make of it.

"Commodor." She said, starting forward with the PADD that contained everything she, Captain Tucker and Commander Reed had come up with. But he didn't take the PADD.

"Do you know," he asked, "that my name is mentioned 150 times in these 27 books, but that all the other crewmen's names put together are mentioned a total of 30 times." He closed the book he'd been skimming and tossed it onto the chair across the room, where it lay withal the other books haphazardly stacked there.

"It would make sense," T'Pol began carefully, taking a seat on the edge of his bed. "You were the captain. It was your decisions and actions that affected the outcomes of our missions."

He gave her a look. "We both know that's not entirely true, but that's not what's bothering me." He said, looking away. He reached out for the PADD. "Let's see what you put together." But T'Pol drew back and took the PADD with her.

"What is it that's bothering you, Jonathon?"

That caused him to look up. He couldn't remember that last time she'd said his name without the rank. He looked up at her and saw something in her face. She too had a difficult time in the Expanse, and she too had never been the same after _Enterprise's_ return. Those memories, remembering how out of control she had sometimes been, reminded him that in the horror of memory, he wasn't alone.

"I don't mind that they write about me." He said quietly, "I can handle the press and the notifications that something else has been named after me." He paused and T'Pol waited, still sitting on the edge of the bed. "What I can't stand," Archer continued, "is the lies. The lies that call me a great man, a hero without fault or guilt. Because I'm not. I regret some of the things I did every moment of every day. I hate that kids look up to me, that they want to be me when they grow up. They want to be a naïve man who can't stand to see his own face anymore."

T'Pol, in a burst of spontaneity that would later cause her much speculation, wasted no time in reaching out and grasping his hand. "Regret and naivety do not make you a bad man. And while you took lives, you also saved far more than you took. To feel remorse is what makes you alive."

Jon looked at her face, so full of empathy, that he felt his heart lift just a little. "I thought you were going to say remorse makes me human." The Vulcan shook her head. Archer sighed. "I think that's why I'm out here again, putting Daniels aside."

"To prove to yourself that you are a good man?"

Archer shook his head. "To do one last good thing, to maybe be a little more worthy of the admiration of kids."

Jon saw T'Pol's feature compose themselves again, once more the calm, stalwart friend he cherished. "That is what makes you human." She said. Then she putt the PADD into Archer's outstretched hand, stood and left his quarters. There was much to be done.

TBC…


	9. Chapter 9

As always, tremendous thanks to Jenna for being such a wonderful beta! Also, I realize the last few chapters have been somewhat confusing. Sometimes I'm not very good at writing out what I have in my head, especially action-wise. For all those blank spots that just don't make sense, bear with me and use your imagination!

The following days were a flurry of activity, and the tension was palpable onboard the ship. The ensigns unfortunate enough to cross Captain Tucker attributed his mood to the situation at hand. But as always, word got around fast on the starship and it wasn't long before the communications and tactical officers pieced the mounting evidence together.

"Will you look at him?" Hoshi asked, peering over Malcolm's shoulder at the cross engineer a few tables away.

"No, I will not. Give the man some peace, Hoshi." Commander Reed scolded, picking through the rest of his meal.

Lt. Sato pursed her lips. "I'm not going to bother him, but it's stupid how they can barely talk to each other and still manage to be constantly pissed off."

"T'Pol's pissed off?" Having spent the majority of the last three days in the armory, Commander Reed had only heard about Trip because his moods were so apparent. T'Pol typically needed to be observed if any change in demeanor was to be discovered.

"There's something about her that's just . . . off." Hoshi said, folding her napkin. "For the most part, she's fine; just her normal self. But as soon as she has to see or talk to Trip," She struck her palm against the edge of the tray for effect. "She starts to get agitated and hides tries to hide it behind a level voice and hard face."

"That bad, eh?" He confirmed, leaning on his forearms. "'Don't suppose you know what happened between them?"

She shrugged. "You mean on the Xindi Mission? Frankly your guess is as good as mine. There were rumors—I'm sure you heard about the neurotherapy or whatever it's called."

Malcolm nodded and moved to rise as Hoshi did the same. "Well whatever it was, only those two are pigheaded enough to let it continue for so long." They left the mess hall, heading towards the turbolift.

"So," Hoshi said brightly after a minute of silent contemplation, "Tell me about Cathryn."

"Ha." Commander Reed began, straightening and squaring his frame. "You can gossip about anyone you want, Ms. Sato, except me."

She gave him a wicked grin. "So the rumors are true. You really are head over heels for her."

He only grinned, and Hoshi chuckled to herself.

That evening, Captain Tucker paid T'Pol a visit. He entered her cabin when she called and gulped hard as he took a good look at her. She was on the floor, numerous PADDs spread around her pajama-clad form. She looked up at him.

"You have the engineering report?" she prompted. He crouched down to better see her face and handed the object to her. Trip glanced around the profusion of data.

"How's it coming?" he asked.

"Not well," was T'Pol's tight-lipped response. "Commander Reed's report says one of the phase cannons is malfunctioning and Dr. Sanders has just told me that he's missing a good deal of medical equipment."

"How did that happen?"

T'Pol gave him a wry look. "He said this mission 'was put together so damn fast it's a wonder that they have surgical gloves.'"

Trip opened his hands in a gesture of apology. "I'm afraid engineering isn't much better. The best we can do for sustained speed is 3.7."

T'Pol looked away from him, staring at an empty bit of carpet in silence. "This isn't going to work," she said.

Trip sighed. While he wanted to argue with her, the prospects were too grim. "It has to work," he told her. When she still said nothing, he coaxed her. "What does the Commodore have to say about all of this?"

T'Pol raised her head, a veil of guilt crossing her features. "I haven't told him yet." At Trip's questioning look, she felt the need to elaborate. "When I took the first outline to him, he was…"

"Depressed." Trip finished, nodding his head. "I did my best to be supportive." T'Pol said, "But providing comfort has never been one of my strengths."

_Then you don't know all your strengths. _Trip thought. "He gets this way every now and then, thinking about the Xindi Mission. The guilt just eats away at him."

T'Pol absently nodded. She understood all too well the lasting torment of guilt and regret.

"Give it time, T'Pol." Trip said kindly. "Once we get this thing underway, he'll snap out of it. No matter what he's going through personally, he'll always put the mission first."

T'Pol found herself believing him. _What a leader he's become_, she thought. Now that conversation had ceased, she realized she was more relaxed. She looked into his warm face, tracing the lines of it as soothing warmth began to unfurl deep in her body . . . and she blinked in near panic.

"Did you see Commander Reed's combat session on your way up?" she asked, the words rushing out of her mouth.

Trip seemed startled, as though he too had descended into the soothing lull that T'Pol had shaken herself from. "Yeah. They were doing well." He paused. "I guess we're as ready as we can be."

The thought was not a comforting one to T'Pol. "Our ETA is less than twelve hours from now." Her tone was soft. "You should get some sleep."

Trip stared at her for just a beat, wondering what he'd done to make her close herself up and dismiss him so suddenly. It had happened so many times, and yet the pain was not dulled by time or frequency. He bit his lip to keep from saying anything rash as he stood and left her cabin. As soon as the door closed behind him T'Pol grabbed the nearest meditation mat and crushed it against her face, trying to keep the emotion from disturbing the still, close air of her cabin.

In his own quarters, Trip made not such attempt as his feelings escaped into the dark.

According to the meager information supplied by their nemesis-turned-guide, ETA was two hours away when Archer called the final briefing.

"What's the status of weapons?" was his first question.

"I've done all I can, sir." Commander Reed replied, "Which pretty much means replacing any suspicious relays and fine-tuning the targeting array. But if we take too many hits, I won't be able to do much at all."

"The modifications my team made to the engines should allow us to strengthen polarity of the hull plating without expending extra energy." T'Pol said.

"Which leaves us with the engines." Archer said, now looking at Trip.

"With the hull polarized I can keep us at Warp 3.7 for seven minutes." He replied quietly.

" Seven minutes?" Lt. Sato repeated, her eyes wide. Trip only nodded, his eyes glued to the situation consol they stood around. Archer turned to her next.

"How's your little project coming along?" he ignored the doubt he saw filling her eyes.

"I think I've finally got it working. The jamming signal will look like a glitch and they'll think the messages we send are from each other."

"Think you can keep them busy for seven minutes?" Commander Reed asked.

Hoshi lifted her eyebrows at him. "I'll do my best."

She, like the others, looked back at Archer. His face was hard, and it was impossible to tell whether the glint in his eyes was warm or cold.

"Let's get to it"

The senior staff moved to their consols and at Archer signal, _Enterprise_ hailed the lead Suliban ship.

"Captain." Silik said, suspicion seeming to hang about him.

"Something's just happened to the temporal technology aboard my ship." Archer lied.

Silik's yellow eyes narrowed. "Happened?"

"All of it simultaneously activated." He paused for a beat, letting the confusion build in the Suliban's mind. "I want you to take it off my ship."

Silik did not look convinced. "Transport it onto mine."

Archer left his chair and stepped down, closer to the viewscreen. "We don't know how this technology works, and I won't have my crewmen handle it when it's potentially dangerous." He could see that Silik expected a trap. He said nothing as the other man's sneer grew. Silik opened his mouth but paused as Lt. Sato addressed her commodore.

"Sir," she said, just as they'd rehearsed, "Two more pieces are gone."

This piqued Silik's attention. "Gone?" he reiterated, eyes sharpening in what Archer read to be worry.

"So far four pieces have dematerialized." He replied. Silik wasted no time in extra conversation. He closed the channel just as Ensign Kumar at the helm reported that his ship was headed for their portside docking port. Archer commed Mr.Reed.

"Ready down there?" he asked.

"Yes sir, stand-by."

Archer gave Lt. Armstrong at his right the cue to go to tactical alert. It wasn't long before internal sensors registered weapon's fire.

"Sending out the signal" Lt. Sato reported. She looked to her commander and nodded.

"T'Pol," he said. She was bent over her consol, already transferring messages to Lt. Sato, who translated and dispersed them among the Suliban ships. Among them were "Silik's orders" not to fire at certain parts of _Enterprise_ because that was where the temporal technology was located. Others, such as "reports" of mechanical malfunctions and damage in a few of the other ships, would be sent out once the firefight began. T'Pol had orchestrated the message pattern to confuse the Suliban as much as possible, which would hopefully buy _Enterprise_ more time.

"Mr. Armstrong, are you locked onto a target?" Commodore Archer asked. At Armstrong's nod, the commodore ordered him to fire. From there it went so fast that Archer could barely keep up with what was happening. He didn't know what was happening in the skirmish on the lower decks, and he could only hear the fingers of his science and communications officers flying over their consoles to know they were working furiously to disable the opposing ships. Armstrong disabled one ship's weapons and destroyed another. He checked the chronometer. Three minutes had already passed. _Enterprise_ took a series of hits before destroying one of the larger vessels. There were now three of the six left. Two of them fired at the starboard nacelle while the other focused on _Enterprise's _firing array. The hits shook the shipviolently. Ruptured ducts released streams of gas into the bridge as alarms rang from the various stations.

"The starboard nacelle is offline." The Vulcan reported. "Lt. Sato, re-route power from it to the jamming signal."

"But look," Sato answered, "the last two are retreating."

T'Pol exchanged a look with Archer. "We can't let them get away." She said to Hoshi, her voice low and hushed as she delivered the verdict.

"But," Hoshi began to protest before Archer interrupted her.

"Re-route the power, lieutenant. Armstrong," he turned to the other lieutenant, "fire at will." Armstrong carried out his orders and destroyed the fleeing ships. Archer stared at the twin circles of debris as he commed Reed once again.

"Mr. Reed, status."

"We've got them containing in section six of D deck. Two conscious, two stunned."

"On my way."

He turned to T'Pol on his way out. "You have the bridge." Almost as an afterthought he added, "good work." He left as T'Pol glanced at the chronometer in the corner of her main display panel. It had lasted six minutes and forty-three seconds. _And now the real work begins, _she thought.

TBC…


	10. Chapter 10

Down on D deck, Archer met up with Reed. Noting the two unconscious and bound Suliban up against a bulkhead, he asked, "Where is he?"

Malcolm nodded towards the junction twenty feet away. Archer looked but saw nothing. One of the MACOs passed him a set of heat-sensing goggles, the newest incarnation of the archaic infrared models. Donning them, the commodore spotted the two conscious aliens crouched low, ready to spring when a chance presented itself.

"You can cut the chameleon act." Archer said to them. The aliens did not comply.

"You are a fool, Archer." The words came from the one on the left. "We would have let you go."

"If you don't make yourselves visible, I'll have you stunned like the others."

Slowly the Suliban regained their normal coloring. It was clear now that Silik's companion was female. The MACO's advanced on them and together the group proceeded towards the brig. Each of the four aliens was placed in a cell. When all was secure, Archer and Reed went back up to the bridge. There they joined Trip and T'Pol in the situation room.

Trip was filthy, grime covering his face and jumpsuit.

"Engine status?" Reed asked. Archer looked at him, surprised that his subordinate had asked the question first. Seeming to read his thoughts, Reed gave his commanding officer a look of apology as Tucker answered the question.

"Minimal damage, thanks to the changes T'Pol's team made." Tucker shot a brief smile in her direction. "Repairs are already underway."

Archer turned to the woman at Tucker's side. "It worked." He said, smiling at her. T'Pol did not bask in the glow of victory that the humans were presently enjoying.

"It's only going to get more difficult." She told them, arms crossed tightly across her ribs. "Scanners show a planet about two hours away. I am supposing that is where Silik was taking us. We've also detected a number of ships in its orbit.

"What kind?" Trip wanted to know. "Is _Columbia _one of them?"

"We're still too far away to tell."

"If you've detected them, they must have detected us as well." Reed said grimly.

"Not necessarily." T'Pol replied. "As far as we can tell, none of the ships have broken orbit. _If_ they have us on their sensors, they obviously didn't care enough to send aid to the Suliban."

"So what do we do now?" Trip asked.

Archer exchanged a look with the Vulcan. "We need to find out what's happening on that planet."

The meeting now adjourned, the commodore and his first officer went down to the brig to interrogate their visitors.

"How do you want to play this?"

She looked at him in confusion as they turned a corner. "What do you mean?"

"Do you have another plan, or are we going to play bad-cop-good-cop?"

The Vulcan woman gave an arch look to her human companion. "I'd assumed we would do it the way we always did." She answered, both brows now raised. It gave her that quizzical, half-teasing look that Jon had gotten so fond of in past years.

"All right, so you'll go first?"

She nodded as they now came upon the first cell. Looking into it, they saw Silik seated on the bench, his vile yellow eyes staring hard back at them. The commodore and first officer glanced at one another again she before she passed the MACO guard and entered the cell.

"I assume you didn't come here to stare at me." Said Silik.

"We need information about the planet you were taking us to."

The Suliban sneered and said nothing.

"We have ways of encouraging you to cooperate." T'Pol said to him.

From outside the cell, Archer observed with mild interest. But then as Silik was speaking, he saw T'Pol's body tense. Silik's mouth kept moving, and the commodore saw the Vulcan become even more tightly coiled.

Unfortunately for Silik, he had picked the wrong things to say.

He'd hardly gotten the final syllables out before he was thrown up against the wall, T'Pol's small hands enclosing his throat in a vice-like grip. He coughed as she squeezed tighter, forcing the air out of his lungs. He began to struggle, too shocked to use his body-altering genetic enhancements. T'Pol put her face very close to his and hissed something into his ear. She squeezed harder, and just as he was about to pass out she released him. He sank back onto the bench, sputtering and wheezing as he glowered at her. But Archer saw there was a measure of fear-induced respect in that glower, and he said nothing as T'Pol came out of the cell. They walked in silence down the corridors to the lift, and it was only when he realized she was going to her quarters that he spoke to her.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing useful."

"Are you alright?"

"Yes."

"But you weren't, in there."

"I momentarily lost control. It won't happen again."

"T'Pol," he took her arm gently, and he felt the tense muscle beneath her sleeve. It took a moment before she would meet his eyes.

"Don't let him get to you." The way he said it was not unkind.

"I've been dealing with this for several years now, Commodore. I can handle myself." She said softly. He held her arm for a bit longer, trying to reach that deep nerve that was sometimes to so hard to find in Vulcans.

"You can come to me, you know. Anytime you need to."

She nodded. He continued, "When this is over, we'll see what we can do about getting you some help," she looked ready to protest but Archer would brook none of it. "Right now, I need you calm and collected, okay?"

Once again she nodded, but as Archer turned to leave he thought he heard her say, "I will do this by myself."

Archer briefly looked back at her before continuing on. _Stubborn to the last_, he thought to himself.

It seemed that T'Pol's little display worked. An hour later, Silik needed only a little more physical persuasion to talk.

"It was a Tholian outpost until recently." He spat the words out.

"How recently?"

"Two weeks ago."

Archer and his first officer glanced at each other. That was several days after Columbia had gone missing.

"What were they using it for?" T'Pol asked.

"The Tholians are always in need of parts. They attack all the vessels they can find and bring them to outposts such as this, where they strip them."

"And the crews of those ships?"

"Put in a network of camps on the surface. Sometimes they are ransomed."

"And now that your people are in control?" Archer growled.

Silik's mouth curled into a tiny mean smile. "We have no use for prisoners. They will die on that miserable rock after we take what we can from the ships."

Archer advanced on him, stopping centimeters away as T'Pol looked on, ready to defend her commodore should the need arise.

"For your sake, there had better be eighty-some humans on that miserable rock." He told the Suliban, his voice quiet and shaking with anger. He stepped back and swept past T'Pol, who gave the Suliban a final stare before following. Two of them left the captive in relative peace.

"I'll start working on a new course of action." T'Pol said as they traversed the corridor. She turned toward the junction that led to engineering. While still angry, Archer couldn't help but smile to himself as he continued on to the bridge. T'Pol, however, had noticed his smile and guessed what had provoked it. For the thousandth time she wondered if the commodore had known about the unique relationship she had shared with Captain Tucker. Even now as she approached the warp reactor and scanned the area for his figure, she couldn't deny that the captain still had a particular hold on her.

T'Pol looked up to see Trip already rushing down a steep metal staircase towards her. His eagerness touched and calmed her, a reaction that by now had become exclusively linked to him. Trip was now fast approaching, so T'Pol quelled her feelings as best she could. But apparently her will wasn't strong enough, since she could see him read her face with concern written all over his own.

"T'Pol?" As he asked, a hand came out to touch her arm, ready to provide support at the most minute of signals. T'Pol swallowed hard and made herself step aside. Trip seemed to get the message, leading the way to his office while keeping a respectable distance between them. Once inside and seated, Trip launched right into business.

"So what did he say?"

T'Pol related the encounter in full, which Trip listen to with an intense stare. _In fact,_ T'Pol thought, _too intense._ When she finished, he blinked and sat back a fraction of a second too late, and she knew at best he'd only heard half of what she had said. As a first officer, she knew she should give him some kind of reprimand—a lecture, at least, on the importance of staying focused—but all such thoughts gave way to the realization that _she_ was the reason he wasn't focusing.

An ancient alarm-- the one she loathed for all the moments it had spoiled yet needed as part of her identity-- sounded, and her body over-rode her mind, just as she had trained it to do at this particular alarm. Before she knew it, T'Pol was standing, then heading out the door as words of excuse tumbled from her mouth. But no amount of self-will or innate discipline could prevent her from looking over her shoulder. In that brief glance she could see the turmoil that rocked steadily inside her mirrored on his own dear face. And that resurrected an intense fear, the one that had accompanied the knowledge that she loved him and he loved her back.

Now within her cabin, T'Pol did not try to calm herself with mediation. _Why should I?_ She rebelliously demanded of her heritage. _Five years of it didn't help, so why should it now?_ Instead, she adopted Jonathon Archer's habit of pacing. She circled the room as chaotic thoughts swirled in her head. T'Pol lost track of time as she retreated inside herself and allowed her consciousness to be submerged in the darkness of her doubts. Finally, she acquiesced to the inevitable.

She had not conquered her feelings for Trip, and it was unlikely that she ever would. For the first time in a very long time, she began to wonder why she should overcome them. The Vulcan recognized this as a path leading to much speculation and concentration, both of which would require time that she did not have at the present moment. With mire energy than she would have liked to expend, she pushed the emotions just far enough to take her focus off them, she settled down to the task of creating a new plan.

Several hours later, alternating between worrying about T'Pol and kicking himself for worrying about T'Pol, Trip received a document on his officer monitor. Addressed to all the senior officers, it contained the outline of T'Pol's newest plan. Coloring in embarrassment form the memory of being so distracted by her as to miss half of what she had said, he reviewed her ideas. And then he shook his head, wondering how she had gotten so damn creative and bold. Though he couldn't really say he disliked such qualities in T'Pol. Checking the time, he left for the bridge and the briefing that was waiting.

TBC…


	11. Chapter 11

Commander Reed rubbed his tired eyes. "Really, T'Pol this is ridiculous."

The Vulcan, taken aback by such a blatant disagreement with her proposal from the person who had always shown her the utmost respect, twisted her back to straighten the kinks. The movement hid her frustration well.

"We have twenty minutes, Malcolm." She said. _That_ startled him; T'Pol had never called him by his given name in all three years they'd served together. Well, unless you counted that one time when she practically propositioned him, but that was beside the point. He shook himself back to the present.

"It's too dangerous." That always seemed to be his response to something planned by Captain—_Commodore, he's a commodore now_—Archer, not the ever logical and cautious T'Pol of Vulcan. Malcolm had always liked how she and he seemed to think along the same lines, especially as regarded Archer's safety. Now she was beginning to sound like Archer himself: bold plan, maximum risk and a quick 'Everything'll be fine' to placate the tactical officer.

No, Malcolm Reed didn't like this change in T'Pol at all.

"Then what do you recommend?"

Damn it all, he wouldn't recommend anything other than staying put and calling for reinforcements, and she knew it. Somehow whenever there was a dangerous mission planned, it was never feasible to do it his way. Temporarily finished with his inner grumbling, Reed ran a hand over his jaw. He was still silent.

"Mr. Reed," she began. He turned his face up to hers, waiting. "Do you trust me?"

Finally, a question that he didn't need to think twice about. "Yes. But I trust myself more."

T'Pol quirked an eyebrow. _Of course._ What else could she expect of Mr. Reed? "I too have tactical experience."

"I know." He sighed. "I know. It has potential, I'll grant you that," he said, "but I don't like how all planning stops once we reach the surface. It leaves too much space for error, and we can't afford any." _Just like always_.

T'Pol nodded. He was right. "Silik said they have little use for prisoners. I think it's safe to think they are under minimal guard, especially since there is no way off the planet."

At his look she added, "Long-range scans indicate the planet is M-class, and even at this range we should know if any significant technological facilities existed."

Reed concurred. "I don't suppose you asked him what other species are down there? No?" He frowned, thinking. "Columbia's crew should all be together. Once we get close enough, it should be easy to find their bio-signs."

He sat back in his chair, face contorting as he racked his brain for something, anything. "We've got our way in. We need a way to get us, and about eighty others, out." A few more minutes were spent in silence; T'Pol retreated in her mind and turned her vacant stare out on the room.

"If the Suliban truly were bringing a commandeered vessel full of humans to the outpost, they'd need a quick and efficient way to get them to the surface." T'Pol mused aloud.

Picking up the thought, Malcolm replied, "Shuttlepod trips would take too long. The transporter?"

The two of them reached the same conclusion. T'Pol spoke first.

"From external sensors, it doesn't matter where the transported object originates or rematerializes."

"It all looks the same. We could say we're beaming _Enterprise's_ crew down when we'd really be bringing _Columbia's _up!" Malcolm finished. It was remarkably simple; just the way he liked it."

"All right." He said, rubbing his palms together. "We've got two of the three parts covered. Now how do we get out?"

"Perhaps we could fabricate orders to move _Enterprise_ to another location? The Suilban are not very well organized—"

"And they're pressed for time." Reed nodded again. "It might work." He sat back. "So I guess this is the basic outline."

"Things will have to be tweaked once we get closer and know more about the planet." T'Pol agreed. "I will start new scans immediately and schedule a briefing in thirty minutes."

Malcolm smiled as they rose from the table. This was the T'Pol he knew, and it put him that much more at ease to know their minds were in sync. "See you then."

Both the science and tactical officers went into the briefing with the full knowledge of exactly how it would go. As T'Pol explained the plan, Reed saw the Archer's eyes light up in approval as Trip's darkened in annoyance. If things weren't so deadly serious, he might have had to stifle a laugh.

"Malcolm? You agree with this?" Well now, there was a question that rarely came from Archer.

"Yessir. It's risky, but then nothing like this is ever safe."

Archer nodded, satisfied, and turned to Tucker. "Bringing on _Columbia's_ crew is going to affect our getaway."

Trip, arms folded as tightly as his lips, struggled to keep his cool. "It'll take more from the engines to get us home, but we should be able to do it. But if we get in a firefight, we'll have to compensate for slower maneuvering."

All eyes turned to Ensign Pallavi, whose look went from wide-eyed excitement to alert beneath all those stares. "Think you can do it, ensign?" She felt her stomach tighten.

"Yes sir." Relief wasn't a strong enough word to describe what she felt when Archer gave her a brief smile and turned away to dismiss everyone. As the members of the senior staff rushed away to prepare, Trip murmured a quick,

"Can I talk to you?" to his good friend. Archer led them to the Ready Room, already sure what this was about.

"Don't tell me," he started, easing himself into his chair. It wasn't as comfortable as it used to be. "You don't like being left behind."

Despite the situation, Trip had to grin. "I never did. And by now I really should know better."

Archer laughed, enjoying the lighthearted moment that would vanish all too soon.

"I just . . . I don't like how it'll be just you and T'Pol down there. In fact, none of us want _you _to go at all."

"Are you trying to tell me I'm old, Trip?" Archer teased. Again Trip grinned.

"I definitely know better than that." He said. "But why not let Malcolm or a MACO go? And I've got very good people in engineering, so really I could—"

"Trip. We both know what this is really about." Archer said. They didn't have time to beat about the bush. Trip said nothing.

"She has to go. She designed the plan, and she has the background to carry it out." Archer's words were not unsympathetic. If the woman he loved was being sent on a dangerous mission without him, Jon knew he'd feel the same way Trip did now.

Trip bit back a sigh. He knew it was true, but it didn't make him any happier. He knew her history with away missions; as far as injury and near-death experiences went, it wasn't much better than his.

"Have you talked to her about it?" Archer asked. The engineer rolled his eyes.

"Are you hearing yourself?"

Archer suppressed a smile. Talking to T'Pol could be as infuriating as talking to lizard. You could yell, shout, do anything to provoke a reaction and she would still be utterly grave. It was an experience they were both very familiar with.

"Anyway," Trip continued, finally taking a seat in the guest chair, "it's only been a couple days that we've even talked to each other. Before that it was years of silence."

"It wasn't just you that she cut herself off from, Trip. As far as I know, she completely secluded herself. Not even Soval knew where she was or what she was doing."

He paused while Trip mulled it over. He glanced at the chronometer on his monitor.

"You've got 45 minutes. I say go talk to her."

They shared a look, and without a word Trip left, resolved to do just that.

Getting himself down to her quarters was easy enough. So was pressing her announce control, and getting himself in the room once she called out permission to enter. But then motor skills failed, and Trip just stood there in the threshold of T'Pol's quarters, looking as foolish and scared as he felt.

T'Pol, seated on a mat in front of her meditation table, knew this look well. It had haunted her for years. Never before had she seen such intense emotion contained so precariously for her sake, and she never expected to see such a look on any other being. It was purely Commander Tucker, and though she knew something difficult was coming, she couldn't bring herself to dismiss him before he'd said his piece.

"I just—" he started. His voice was hoarse, and he smoothed his uniform with trembling hands as he stood before her. Trip tried not to think about that fact that she hadn't invited him to sit down. He also tried to forget the stoic, unforgiving stillness of her countenance. She had never been more Vulcan, and he had never been more vulnerable.

"I wanted to talk . . . before you have to go."

"What about?"

Trip had a good feeling she knew exactly 'what about'. He knew this game of hers. She was scared. He could see it on her and could taste it in the air. But her fear scared him too, because he wasn't sure what she was scared of. It could be that she was scared of him, of his feelings for her. Or maybe she was scared of the feelings that he suspected she had for him. Hell, maybe it was a combination of them all. The point was that even after years of agonized wondering and divination, poor Trip still didn't know what it was. And that made it all too easy for her to slip through his fingers again.

He took a deep breath. "About you and me. About what happened years ago, and what I think is happening now." He was amazed at how he got it out in such a clear, strong voice.

T'Pol was surprised as well. _He knows_, she thought. It was petrifying and set off a chain of thoughts, each more frantic than the last, a reaction she was helpless to stop and forced to endure. _He knows I feel as he does. He'll want an explanation, want to know why I won't let anything happen between us. He'll ask me to give him—us—a chance. He'll want to know what I'm afraid of._ And the single most terrifying thought of all, the one that had kept her emotions for Trip from ever being manifest into reality. _He will ask me for something I cannot give. And it will destroy him._

He was still standing there, unsure whether he should forge ahead or let her say something. Peering at her, Trip couldn't see what she was thinking. But he could feel something shift. She rose, and his stomach sank. He knew this was not how he wanted it to go.

"There is nothing to be said." She answered him, turning around to snuff out a few candles scattered across the cabin. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him fidget, his eyes moving restlessly. He was becoming agitated, and she hoped he would just let himself graduate to anger and leave. It would make everything so much easier, just like it had in the past.

"_You_ don't need to say anything, T'Pol." He said. He was hurt, pissed at her for hurting him again and even more pissed at himself for thinking this situation could have turned out otherwise. "Because for once, this isn't about you. This is about me."

She was facing him again, her face soft and unguarded once more. She thought she'd turned the tables back on him. But for once, Trip had the up on his Vulcan, and he was going to show her the light whether she liked it or not. He pressed on, determined to finish this. If he never saw her again, at least he'd have the comfort that she had known definitively, once and for all, exactly how he felt about her.

"No matter what happens after this, I need you to know how I feel; how I've felt for so long."

In two long strides he caught her and kissed her soundly. It wasn't gentle or long; actually rather impassioned and hard, and it took both their breaths away. T'Pol was too stunned to do anything but stand in his embrace as he held her, his breath stirring the hair behind her ear as he poured his whole heart out in a few whispered words. And just as suddenly as he'd grabbed her, T'Pol found herself free and staring after Trip's form as it hastily passed through her door.

She found herself sinking to her bunk, wondering nonsensically if a Vulcan had ever died of too much emotion.

Several decks down, sitting in the cool metal confines of the brig, Silik brooded. Time was running out, and they needed instruction. He needed to redeem himself from so many failures. The lines in his face deepened as he thought, fiercely trying to come up with something, anything.

"Stop it."

The command came from the female across the cell. Silik did his best to quiet his thoughts. He'd forgotten about his newest enhancement. Telepathy was newer to him than to the other Suliban currently enjoying incarceration in the belly of the Earth ship. He had to police himself not to let his personal thoughts interfere in the communications going on between the others. Instead of focusing on himself, he channeled his new skills to the conversation taking place between his cell mate and the others under her command in the next cell. Inwardly, he smiled to himself as he looked out at the guards who policed them, completely oblivious to the silent and communal brainstorming that was taking place through the steel walls. Archer had outmaneuvered them for now, but it wouldn't be long before odds favored Silik and his kind again.


End file.
